


better off this way

by catscradyl



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Butcher Army, Canon Divergent, Character Is Drugged Without Knowing, Dream Smp, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, If canon won't use Pandora's Vault yet I will, Imprisonment, Introspection, Medieval Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Or Potion Use I Guess, Pillory, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Practically an AU with how fast the world changes, Stocks, Techno Whump, but also some hurt/no comfort, everybody getting locked up let's go, everyone eventually has a cameo or shows up pretty much but not tagging cause they aren't the focus, for reference Techno is a humanoid pig in this, like the old fashioned public humiliation stuff, perhaps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28052832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catscradyl/pseuds/catscradyl
Summary: With his hands tied, feet bound, and limbs lashed to one another; the phrase 'hog-tied' really had a funny kind of truth to it.In which, Technoblade gets dragged out of his early retirement.
Comments: 120
Kudos: 420





	1. Calm Sea

The villagers and him had begun to work out a language system. Communicating through trading was one thing, but he wanted to get to know the neighbors he had found himself living beside. So, he had started to negotiate on a method, one that had proved effective, if not a bit simple, more of a pictographic sort of understanding than any spoken or written one. 

And they told him stories, of how they moved about if the food left, or the rains stopped for far too long-- that no land was truly theirs to own and take from, that they built homes and tilled the soil to life with the understanding this may not last. That their were no kings among them, nor even a single one that considered themselves a leader by any standards that everyone he had fought beside (and against) would even comprehend. 

There was no form of government that ran their village. Despite this, they were organized and willing to do business with outsiders who came to them. They even had means of defending themselves and had done so before. And it was everything Technoblade had known was possible, but everything that L'Manberg refused to even imagine. 

And maybe Wilbur and the others just lacked creativity, or the history that explained government was not as old as man. Rather, it was the other way around. That man was far older and wiser than it. Government was in its infancy compared to them; a toddling, bumbling, and mistaken little thing that fell more often than it stood. 

It was a pitiable sight, admittedly, to see them reinstate the same systems over and over again only to watch them crumble, fall, and be thrown over like some strange game he didn't quite understand the appeal of. 

And maybe when he was younger, (even just weeks ago younger), anarchy hadn't meant more than chaos and violence to him. Conflating the two seemed easy, because of course with no order comes chaos, right? And, with no government, there was no order. It had to be that simple, didn't it? But then he learned, and he grew, and he saw and witnessed and now he knew it wasn't that simple. Violence did not hold hands with anarchy, they were not two sides of the same coin. Violence was a tool he wielded, like any sword or axe, to get the desired outcome he wanted, but anarchy did not intrinsically seed violence into the workings of a society. 

If anything, he had learned that government did that all on its own. 

The punitive laws and systems-- the banishments, exiles, genocides, torture, imprisonment, beatings; all forms of a governing bodies attempts to wrest control out of each and every citizen that dared question them or hope for something different. It was their way of pressing their thumb against the pulse of a nation and pushing down until it ran red. 

And while he understood violence, understood it in as many ways as he understood every scar and broken bone he had ever received in the name of it-- he also understood violence was not the end goal of all of this anymore. 

The villagers proved that enough. Lands beyond this one, beyond this time and with books and word of mouth to peer into, proved it. 

He just had to make them all understand it was a possibility as well...

Or not. 

He was retired now, after all. And this little icy, winter wonderland he had found himself in wasn't too shabby. The neighbors were pleasant company, which was a bonus. 

Yeah, he could probably stay here a while. And it might even be something good for once, to stay uninvolved in whatever was happening across the water. Which could really be anything by now. Probably another war, they really seemed to love starting those...

His short trek home from his latest excursion to the village brought him back to that very same shore line that separated him from the rabble and noise of the rest of them. Sunset painted the sea bloody as the sun made its way down the horizon, and the ice sprawled like stained glass under the harsh glare. Stars would be out soon too, more than he was used to seeing here-- having been holed up underground or the sky overhead always half-eaten away by the lights of a city.

Now it was just him and nothing but the stars...

He sighed, adjusting the sword lashed at his hip, chin dipping to stare blankly at the ice and snow underfoot. He had considered shedding it completely, his denouncement of violence a serious one, but something always strayed his hand from the decision to completely part with it. A small, wriggling mass of voices, tucked into the far peripheral of him, ones that curled and snapped like smoke over an open flame. 

They were so easy to listen to, when they crooned and called for old vices he had promised himself to shed, but couldn't lie and say he didn't miss. Even now he could hear something, tinny and distant, like the buzz of flies to rot, and while he couldn't pick out the exact words, the intention was always clear. And it usually called for blood and--

Now, he had to admit, the coughing was new-- he hadn't heard the voices do that before, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn't in his head this time. Some idiot was scrabbling their way out of the nearly frozen sea and onto the ice shelf just ahead of him. He watched dumbly while they threw themselves onto their back and spluttered and coughed up what had to be an unhealthy amount of sea water. 

"Fuck-- Fucking christ--" 

The curses between the hacking could only belong to one person. 

It was no issue to cross the ice and stoop down beside the struggling figure, the familiar red and white shirt driving home exactly who had washed up onto his frigid beach. Technoblade spent little time considering his next actions. He balled the scruff of the kid's shirt in his fist and hoisted him to his feet and higher still.

Tommy dangled limply from his grasp and glared back at him, as if Technoblade was the one who had decided to ruin his evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This plot moves so fast and I work so I have no idea what exactly has happened since before Thursday (12/10/20). I'm still gonna write this stupid idea anyway. 
> 
> I'll add tags as I go usually, but mostly do content warnings in the notes of a chapter so I don't clutter up the tags too much. Unless it's something that has a common filtered tag already.


	2. Lucky Tea Kettle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and those who've left comments so far. Appreciate ya <3

"Oh, great… it's you." Technoblade deadpanned, voice low and tired. "Sorry if I don't seem entirely enthusiastic about you showing up here out of the blue and off script." 

"Shut the fuck up." Tommy spat all while he clawed at the arm suspending him in the air. Technoblade reluctantly dropped him and Tommy stumbled, managing to stay on his feet through sheer stubbornness alone it seemed. "I didn't come here for you-- well, I mean, I did, but not to see you--" 

"That's, uh, quite the confusing explanation there, Tommy." 

"Shut-- Look, just-- Fucking--" Tommy cut himself off, abruptly and so suddenly it made Technoblade's brow furrow.

"I don't have all day, Tommy, spit it out." 

"It's… uh, it's--" Tommy glanced everywhere but him, seeming to search for something before he pointed back out towards the water with a renewed sense of urgency. "They're coming for you." 

The whiplash from all the mixed signals here was tiresome to say the least, and he had forgotten how weird his little brother could be when he wasn't trying to kill him or curse his name. Though, the words Tommy did manage to spit out were mildly concerning, if not a bit confusing. 

No one back there even knew where he was, besides Phil at least. And, well, Tommy now. Though… he supposed Tommy had to have also known where he was in the first place to find him at this moment. That didn't exactly bode well. 

"Right now?" Was all he managed, hand resting on the hilt of his blade and eyes scanning the dimming horizon for any boats. It was all clear for now.

Tommy shrugged but said nothing more, still panting heavily from his swim all the way here, shivering and shaking in his measly cotton layers.

"So, let's say what you're saying is true, then how long do we got?"

Tommy shook his head. "I, uh, I don't know, I left as soon as I heard about it-- Dream said--" 

"You're still letting him boss you around?" 

Tommy made a high pitched noise, nearly a squeal, and Technoblade would have been impressed by the pig-like nature of it if he wasn't trying to figure out why the hell they'd be coming for him now. Or why Tommy even came to warn him. Something wasn't exactly adding up, but some measure of caution wasn't completely unwarranted in times like these. 

"I mean, Dream wasn't even the one who suggested it, I don't really know. It just came up when some of the others were visiting and I--" 

He raised a brow. "So... you don't know if they are actually coming for me?" 

"Well, I--I mean--" Tommy stuttered. "I mean, no, but--" 

"Tommy, why would you swim all the way here to warn me about something that may not even be happening?" Techno asked. "Not to mention, how'd you even know where I was in the first place?" 

Tommy shook his head, rubbing at his arms and shifting his weight from foot to foot as he glanced around everywhere but him. "Look, as much as I love chatting shit with you, it's bloody fucking cold outside, can we maybe continue this inside?" 

"Sure, but I'm still not a hundred percent on what's happening here." Techno considered the rather thin look to the already whip-thin kid. "You know, if you just needed some food you could have just led with that. No need for the elaborate stories." 

"Shut it! I'm not starving, I can find my own food, and sometimes Dream--" 

"Not to be rude, but you're gonna have to stop talking about him so much, it's getting a bit concerning." 

Tommy spluttered again, face tinged red with both the cold and indignation. 

Technoblade shrugged. "I'm just saying, maybe analyze that or something." 

"Shut the fuck up." Tommy gritted out between chattering teeth. 

Technoblade sighed, turned heel, and began the journey back to his cabin. Yeah, this could be a trap of some sort. And yeah, he could easily get all his shit stolen or place griefed after this, but at the end of the day, no matter how estranged or hated he was, Tommy was still his little brother. He wasn't too keen on watching him freeze to death out here. 

The walk back was short and crisp, and he had to slow his pace a few times as Tommy struggled through the snow after him. It almost seemed like the kid had a slight limp on his right side.

Apparently exile wasn't exactly doing Tommy any favors. 

The cabin door creaked on its hinges as he pushed it wide for Tommy to stumble in first as he dumped the sack of traded goods by the jamb. The kid quickly ran for the hearth, dripping water the whole way. Technoblade restrained another long, bone-weary sigh. This was going to be a long evening. He shut the door behind him and latched it firmly shut. 

While Tommy warmed himself up, Technoblade puttered around the cabin, drawing curtains and shutters and ensuring all candles were snuffed out, until the only light that remained was the glow of the fire. It cast harsh shadows across the floor, twisting his own silhouette into a contorted and grotesque beast against the far wall that he regarded for only a moment. His attention trailed back to where the light cut stark contours across Tommy's face, sallow and far more sunken than any sixteen years old's should be. 

He watched as Tommy leaned closer to the sparks, unblinking, nearly nose to nose with the nearest flames if he inched even a bit closer--

"So, what exactly was this grand plan of theirs to come and get me?" He started, settling down beside Tommy. 

"Oh, uh, it's--" Tommy blinked, jerking back and seeming to check back into reality. "Well they were just gonna outnumber you...I think? I wasn't close enough to really hear the plans that well. Just eavesdropping some, you know?" Nervous laughter trailed after his explanation and all of it sounded like bullshit.

"Yeah." Technoblade side-eyed him skeptically. "Well, guess we'll just wait and see then." 

" _What_?" Tommy squeaked out. 

"What?" He echoed. 

"You're not gonna leave?" 

"And why would I do that?" 

"I don't fucking know, maybe cause they could try and kill you!" 

"Isn't that what you want though?" 

Tommy thinned his lips and glanced down. "I mean…" 

"They couldn't even put a scratch on me anyway." Technoblade raised his hand to clap Tommy on the shoulder, but the kid flinched a bit too much for his comfort to follow through. "Technoblade never dies." 

Tommy snorted. "You're not a god." 

"Naw, but I don't have to be a god to be immortal." 

"That doesn't even make any fucking sense!" 

Technoblade shrugged. "Doesn't have to." 

He was like ninety percent sure Tommy wasn't being entirely truthful with why he was here. There was a frantic edge to him, and he seemed eager to get Technoblade to leave...and possibly with him in tow? Or maybe he'd go crawling back to Dream after Technoblade packed up and headed further from the reach of L'Manberg and the other little micronations that wanted his head.

"So, let's say I believed you, and I did leave, would you just go back after?" 

Tommy startled before composing himself with a huff. "Maybe." 

"Mm." 

"I don't need your judgement." 

"I didn't even say anything." 

"I could feel you judging!" 

"Naw." Technoblade reassured with an easy smile. He was judging Tommy though; extremely hard. 

Tommy, to his own credit, seemed at least cowed by the fact he wanted to go back to Dream and whatever else he had back there. So, that was something at least. The kid also looked like a drowned rat, and not just any drowned rat, a drowned rat that had gotten caught in the turbines of a hydroelectric dam and been lucky to not be churned out in tiny little pieces on the other side. 

"You look like shit." 

"Thanks, big man." Tommy grumbled. 

Technoblade didn't miss the way Tommy fidgeted at the bandages on his hands and forearms, the tell-tale angry red and crawling pattern of burns evident where flesh poked through. It looked grotesque, and awfully painful. 

He pointed to the bandages. "Where'd you even get those?" 

Tommy seemed to shrink on himself, shoulders slumped. "Just an accident. Dream pushed me into lava and I didn't drink the fire resistance potion quick enough. But it's been healing just fine, so I mean it's okay. It was just a joke anyway."

"He… _pushed_ you into lava?" Maybe any other time he would have laughed at the absurdity of that, but the way Tommy said it made him falter. 

"Yeah, him and Lazar were just dicking around I mean, it's whatever." Tommy smiled, laughed, and Technoblade had to keep from wincing with how tilted it looked and sounded.

"What about those?" 

He gestured towards his own chin, where on Tommy's there was an angry purpled bruise, the edges turning a pucey green. Shoddy bandage work covered Tommy's left shoulder and poked out from under the neckline of his shirt, a shirt which had certainly seen better days. The bags under his eyes could have been classified as duffels with the kind of weight they seemed to be carrying, and Tommy hunched forward more than Technoblade remembered. Like his spine had gotten used to curling inwards, rather than when the kid stupidly puffed his chest out and shouted down someone far stronger than him. Even his eyes seemed a bit off...

"Uhm, yeah, I dunno, I probably just fucking fell...or something." 

Even if Tommy could and would eventually get on his nerves, Technoblade wasn't about to force him to go back. That would just be cruel and unusual punishment at this point. Though, he's sure Tommy would get bored of being out here and eventually find a way to crawl his way back into Dream's backyard. He could at least delay the inevitable until the kid was fully healed up. 

"Any particularly hard feelings against potato soup?" 

"Aw, yeah, honestly anything other than fucking bread would be top notch." 

"Well, alright then." Technoblade clapped his hands together and stood. "Soup time it is." 

The sack of potatoes nestled at the base of one of his many chests was pretty much all he had at the moment, and he had meant to come back and farm more, work on getting the bee farm more situated, and maybe find his cow a companion-- but potatoes would have to do for now. 

Tommy, in a surprise twist, helped him peel the potatoes (even if a part of him was reluctant to hand the kid any kind of blade). In an oddly quiet manner at that. And it was weird for the kid to be quiet. He usually ended up talking your ear off or asking inappropriate questions to fill the silence. He seemed focused, intent on perfectly and precisely peeling every potato Technoblade handed him until not an inch of skin remained.

"So, other than getting pushed into lava, what have you been up to in exile?" 

"Not much. It's pretty fucking boring. And no one visits me as much as I thought they would." 

"Yeah?" Technoblade finished up the last potato and wandered back to the meager kitchen area (more just a nook where he and Philza would slap together meals) rummaging for a, hopefully, clean knife. 

"Yeah! Like I don't know it would be nice to have just a little bit of fucking company sometimes." 

"Don't you have Dream?" He asked, making quick work of chopping up ingredients and chucking them into a pot. 

Tommy scoffed, spluttered, "I mean well, yeah, but that's just Big-D. He's just always there. I'd really at least like Tubbo to visit…" 

"I'm sure he'll come by eventually." He tried his hand at reassurance as he threw in a palmful of spices, filled the pot with water, and hung it on the cooking rack back over the hearth. 

The starchy aroma of potato stew had him wrinkling his snout. It would have been nice to have even a little bit of protein to add to it, or some mushrooms. Man, he really wished he had some mushrooms. But carrots and potatoes were adequate for now. Better than whatever Tommy has been feeding himself probably. 

"So, uh…" Technoblade started, the silence sitting unwell on his shoulders. "How's Wilbur?" 

Tommy shrugged, eyes locked on the fire. "Still a fucking ghost." 

"Yeah. Makes sense." 

It became quiet again, and for longer. Long enough the soup finished roiling and he doled out a portion for each of them. Tommy ate slower than he expected, picking over each bit methodically. But he was at least eating. 

"Techno?" 

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Wilbur likes being a ghost?" 

"I, uh--" Technoblade paused. "I don't imagine he feels much of anything about it to be honest. Why?" 

"I don't know, just wondering if maybe he thought it was better or whatever." 

"Better to be dead?" 

Tommy didn't answer him. They finished the rest of their meal in silence. 

Technoblade collected Tommy's bowl once he was sure the kid had eaten all he wanted. Hunger gnawed at him, and he could have eaten at least two whole bowls more, but he had only really made enough for the two of them to have one portion each. It was nothing new to go without eating enough for a night. And he had brought some more wheat and some dried meat back from the village for later, as well as-- 

"Oh, hey, I got something from the village today that you'd probably like." 

Tommy started from where he had been staring at the fire again, sucking in a sharp breath and blinking rapidly. His eyes darted frantically around the cabin and landed on Technoblade who waited for Tommy to go through whatever this was. 

"Oh, shit, really? What is it, big man?" Tommy said, like Technoblade hadn't watched him regard everything around him like a deer in headlights just seconds ago. 

Technoblade smirked, lips pulling around his tusks as he pulled free a round little tin the size of a compass from the burlap sack he had discarded by the door. 

"It's tea." 

"Oh, fuck, for real?" 

"Yeah, one of the villagers apparently collects and dries the leaves themself and wanted to know if it was any good from an outsider's perspective. Not really a massive fan of tea, but I'll try anything once." 

"Hand it over." Tommy held out his hand, eyes actually alight for the first time since he had been here. 

Technoblade tossed it to him. "Water and kettles over there. I'm gonna go grab some more wood for the ol' fire so we don't freeze the place out tonight." 

Tommy glanced to the door and then back to him, shifting his weight, hands fidgeting with the metal tin. "Just be quick about it." 

"Always am." 

He stepped out into the frigid cold, the wind whipped and tugged at him, the snow flurrying and settling with the gusts as he trudged through the banks. The temperature had definitely dipped pretty considerably, they would need a good bit of wood to get them through the night. 

Technoblade wandered to the stable, patting Carl on the snout before he stooped to collect armfuls of wood that he and Phil had worked to chop and neatly stack. Carl nosed at him and Techno was glad he had traded for that heavy wool blanket back at the village, the heating enchantment on it hopefully doing its job to keep Carl comfortable out here. 

"Have a good night, Carl." 

The horse whinnied and tossed his head as Technoblade retreated back towards the cabin. He pushed the door open with a hoof, shouldering his way in and quickly shutting it with his back as the wind tried to invite itself in behind him. 

Tommy straightened up from where he was hunched over the kettle at the hearth, blinking dumbly at him and the wood gathered in his arm.

"Jesus fuck did you grab the whole fucking wood stack?"

Technoblade dumped the split logs beside the hearth. "Figured you'd bitch about how cold it was all night if I didn't." 

Tommy scrunched his face up at him. "I don't 'bitch'." 

"Mm, you kinda do." 

Tommy grumbled, turning back to the kettle suspended over the crackling flames. "Teas almost done." 

Technoblade grunted a noncommittal response, settling down in front of the fire again, taking time to pick the snow out of his hooves where it had packed itself in quite inconveniently. 

"So, I assume your cavalry isn't coming today then?" Technoblade drawled. 

"My wha--" Tommy started. "Oh, right. No, I don't think so." 

"Welp, we should pr--" 

The kettle hissed and then squealed, a high pitched and awful whine that had Technoblade rubbing at his ears as Tommy took the kettle off the fire. 

"Forgot why I never used that thing. Thanks for the reminder."

"Who's bitching now?" 

Technoblade rolled his eyes. "I was going to say we should probably try and get an early start tomorrow in case they show up in the morning." 

"Jesus, you want me to go to bed at fucking sunset? Are you fucking ancient?" 

"Dust and bones, Tommy." 

Tommy muttered more profanities to himself as he poured the steaming water over the tea leaves he had seemingly already prepped and dropped into the only two mugs Technoblade owned. The other mug was usually Phil's...

Technoblade accepted the hot brew, staring down skeptically at the dried leaves swirling in the water, already clouded and turning a muddy brown. It was admittedly not that appetizing looking. He contemplated turning it down, but Tommy seemed eager to have him try it. And he supposed he could indulge the kid. 

He raised the cup to his mouth, blew on it a few times in a vain attempt not to burn the shit out of himself, and--

It didn't taste like complete shit. The aftertaste was a bit… _off_. Bitter and like he was chewing on dirty grass and something almost metallic. 

"It's… interesting." 

"Hey, you can't blame me, I just boiled the water." Tommy said, taking his own taste. "Mm, actually yeah, that's a bit fucking shit." 

"I didn't say it was necessarily bad." 

"Well then I will." 

Technoblade took a longer sip of it just to watch Tommy's face wrinkle up in disgust. 

"You're such a fucking pig." 

Technoblade grinned. "That I am." 

Tommy laughed, loud and obnoxious, and Technoblade recognized his little brother for the first time since he had picked him up off the ice. The atmosphere quickly sobered as they lapsed back into quiet and the fire snapped and crackled like the pop and hiss of distant fire works. 

"You…" Tommy rubbed the back of his neck, side-eyeing him. "You don't have to finish it if you don't want to." 

"Too late." Technoblade sat down the emptied mug, the coppery aftertaste sticking heavy and thick to his tongue. 

Tommy's brow furrowed, smoothed and furrowed again, and he fidgeted around with the small tin.

"Everything good?" 

"Yeah, just tired as all fuck." Tommy admitted, glancing off to the side.

"One sec." Technoblade fished out two bedrolls from a chest, tossing one to Tommy who barely caught it. "Sorry, I don't have any pillows. I know you're used to living in absolute luxury in your little tent." 

"Shut up." Tommy grumbled, snapping out the bedroll and picking a spot as close to the fire as possible.

Technoblade contemplated asking him to move at least a foot further away from it, but he didn't feel like calling him on it. Tommy had taken worse damage than a few sparks. Nothing a bit of potion couldn't fix. 

He furled out his own bedroll, closest to the door. Sword still buckled around his waist he laid down and watched the unmoving slab of oak. He listened to Tommy shuffle and shift behind him, no doubt trying to get comfortable without a blanket or anything else. Part of him felt bad for the miserly conditions, but Tommy had been sleeping in a shitty tent so really, in a way, this was an upgrade. 

It wasn't until he had nearly fallen asleep twice that he noticed the chill that was permanent at his hooves was gone, and there was a pleasant warmth humming around in his skull. The voices were silent too, which was a welcome development. He wondered if that villager maybe laced the tea with something a bit more potent than just some oddly flavored leaves. The thought of accidentally having given Tommy some form of drugs was both hilarious and morbid. It _probably_ wouldn't kill the kid… Probably. 

"Hey, big man?" Tommy asked, voice quiet. 

Technoblade thought about not answering him and just closing his eyes, but somehow Tommy managed to go from being annoying to sounding lost like it was nothing.

"Yeah?" And wow, he didn't realize how hard it was to get his tongue to work properly. 

"It's nothing, nevermind." Tommy quickly mumbled and Technoblade heard him turn over. 

He was too tired to mull over whatever that was even if he wanted to. That tea was one hell of a brew if the numbness in his fingertips meant anything. He would have to ask the villagers what they made it with next time he visited them. Maybe he could bring Tommy along tomorrow too...

Gods, he really couldn't lift his arm even if he wanted to. It's like it's been glued down to the boards. He nearly laughed, but then forgot what he was going to laugh about. 

Why did his mouth taste so weird again? 

It wasn't important. Was his heart beat always that loud? Whatever, it was-- It was whatever. 

Yeah, none of that was important. What was important was sleep. And gods, he was bone tired. Like weary, soul deep about to pass out and sleep for a century tired. He hadn't been able to peel back his eyelids for five minutes, the only thing keeping him focused was the crackle of the hearth, but at this point it had faded into a miasma of sound soup. 

Soup. That soup was pretty good. He was pretty sure he did a good job cooking it, he doesn't have many opportunities to cook for others, and maybe Tommy liked it, which was good. 

Yeah, it was good. Good… 

What was good again? 

Sleep. Oh, yeah, he should really try and get some of that. But his stomach felt a little off. Like the unhappy flopping of a stranded fish that knew it wasn't meant to be out of water. 

He really hoped that tea didn't come back to haunt him later. That wouldn't be so fun. No… it wouldn't… 

No, wait. _Wait_. There was something he was supposed to do. Something with the door… It was… There was something about the door...

His final, fleeting moments of consciousness stumbled with a sort of off kilter hitch to them, like they were being battered around by something he couldn't quite see. 

And Technoblade didn't rise with the sun like he was supposed to.


	3. Fish in a Dish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea started mostly cause I remembered Tommy has some form of knowledge in drug making, per the lore. 
> 
> Also, somehow, the Butcher Army I wrote has more braincells than canon. 
> 
> Content warnings: Mild emetophobia warning, manhandling, dehumanization. Continued Forced Potion/Drug Use and effects.

He flinched and jerked at the sound of shattering glass. The distant roar of a fire and the excited shouts and whooping yells of other people weren't his usual wake up calls and it sent his stomach sinking.

He managed to peel open one eye and his range of movement halted there. Any attempt to lift his head was futile and with his face pressed into the sleet, a chill seeping in, creeping its way down his spine, he could only stare at the pair of sneakers that took up his immediate line of sight. He rolled his gaze up to find their owner.

Tommy stood before him and if he wasn't in such a predicament he might have shown more incense at seeing the Orphan Obliterator strapped around the kid's waist. He might have shown anything more than silent weariness if it weren't for the brimstone glow that framed Tommy and drew his attention to the flames now devouring his cabin behind the kid. 

"To--" he tried to say his name, but it died on his tongue and he screwed his eyes shut.

It broke Tommy out of his stupor at least, as he felt a hand shake his shoulder, one that he would have liked to shrug off. Nausea sat heavy and as noxious in his gut as the headache that hammered at his skull and Tommy certainly wasn't helping it--

"Techno?" 

Technoblade tried to move his wrists, maybe to try and swing at the kid or just steady himself as the world seemed to spin and spin, but they were trussed to one another, extended before him in an uncomfortable stretch. His ankles also restrained, all four limbs tied together, and he pulled at the ropes. 

Anything as flimsy as these should have at least frayed and started snapping, but he barely even heard them strain. It was… pathetic. He still couldn't even lift his head from the snow.

He opened his eyes again, the light not so invasive this time, and Tommy was stooped over him, occasionally shooting glances back over his shoulder. Despite the way his tongue felt like it had dried up at the bottom of his jaw, he had to ask, he had to know-- 

"What--" _'What did you do, Tommy?'_

Tommy shook his head. "I wasn't going to, if you'd just fucking left I wouldn't have. I fucking had to, they're my friends, Techno-- You would have-- I couldn't watch them get killed." 

Oh, so, this is what it felt like, huh? He could see why Tommy was so angry at him all the time. 

He tried to say anything, maybe even crack a joke, lighten the mood as he listened to his home-- his and Phil's home-- continue to burn in the background. Phil… Phil had said he would be back by noon. Technoblade tried to find the sun, figure out what time it was, the lingering purples of dawn both foreboding and damning, but all he could see was Tommy crouched over him, the kid's face contorted and twisted into an ugly mask of tears. 

Why was Tommy even the one crying? 

"I-- I let Carl go, before they got here." Tommy rushed out, wiping at his face. 

Technoblade grunted. At least he wouldn't have to watch his horse get butchered in front of him. 

"They're-- I thought they'd just take you back to L'Manberg, but they're--" 

Yeah, he figured anyone that showed up here would swipe everything he had grinded for. It was only logical at some point. 

"Phil…" He managed to slur out in a huff. 

Eyes turned to the sky, Tommy scanned the horizon and Technoblade hoped he saw something there. No dice, apparently, as Tommy looked back to him and shook his head. Either way, something about the mention of Phil had Tommy unnerved, and Technoblade watched as he hesitated only a moment before he stood, stumbled back a step, and ran for the crumbling and smoldering remains of Technoblade's cabin. 

The second he left, Technoblade tried to get his bonds up to his tusks, to snag the fibers against them, but with his knees pulled towards his chest like they were, and little to no wiggle room in his constraints, he could only struggle for a few a moments before he sagged against the frigid slush. 

This… Well, frankly, this wasn't great.

It felt like he had been hit by a moving brick wall. And not just once, but at least three times. His limbs felt like jelly, and his bones about as sturdy as soggy bread. 

Even thinking about food made him want to hurl up everything he had eaten. 

Whatever Tommy had given him was one hell of a thing. And he couldn't even think of when the kid could have slipped it to him. The only time he had left was when he went to gather firewood, and he swears Tommy also had tried the-- 

Tommy hadn't actually drank any of the tea. 

And he'd already had the mugs out and beside him, he could have poured it in and just added water to make it all look natural. That little fucker. 

He didn't even know who the hell had put him to the task. It's not like Dream wanted his head on a pike that bad, and they sort of had an understanding. But there were a few in L'Manberg he could think of. A few who probably visited Tommy in his exile, probably convinced him this was a good idea, probably dangled the prospect of company over the sixteen year old like a treat-- 

"Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!" A voice crooned, the crunch of snow underfoot betraying their approach. 

Speak of the devil. And of course it would be Quackity helming this little operation. He was the only person crazy enough to follow through. Technoblade had to begrudgingly admit, however backstabbing it was to use Tommy to do it, that it had been smart of them to incapacitate him. Otherwise, he would have had them lying in their own blood in five seconds flat. 

Technoblade glared up at the smug face leering down at him. The butcher apron was a bit much, yet he had to admire the theatrics of it. At least they had the decency to come and grief his shit with flair. Though the fact Quackity had felt the need to dig up his old furred cape and wear his crown, all tilted and quite sloppily at that, was taking it too far. 

"Aw, cat got the piggy's tongue?" Quackity taunted, laughing. 

Technoblade rolled his eyes and really wished he could at least quip something back, but talking sounded like a lot of effort right now, even staying awake was starting to sound like a lot, and it was hard to keep his eyes from slipping closed again. 

More footsteps trailed after Quackity. "What the hell did you feed him, Tommy?" 

And that was Fundy. Guess the whole damn circus was here. 

A third set of footfalls ran up to join the other two. "It's-- it's just something to keep him tired and shit, had to ask Ghostbur how to up the potency though." Tommy mumbled. 

Technoblade put all his strength into keeping one eye open and trained on Tommy, just as a reminder. 

"Well, give him my thanks." Quackity clapped Tommy on the shoulder. "You did good work here, Big T." 

Tommy grimaced and Technoblade tried to convey just how much he would beat the kid within an inch of his life if he wasn't tied up with a glare alone. It seemed to work, because Tommy shuffled fully behind the others, looking anywhere but him. 

Little late for any guilt or regret. And dragging Wilbur into it was low. The ghost probably just thought Tommy wanted to expand his horizons, learn new things, not poison someone. 

Another person joined their little ring, not wearing an apron like Fundy and Quackity, but hoisting a pair of burlap sacks over his shoulder, and though Technoblade was less familiar with Sam, he'd recognize the Creeper anywhere. 

"Got everything useful." It was hard to read Sam's expressions, but Technoblade was pretty sure he was happy with whatever he'd found. 

"Awesome, fucking great-- Now we should head back." Tommy urged, pushing at Quackity. 

"Hey, hey, what's the rush, Big T?" 

"That shit won't last forever and I've only got so much left." With the way Tommy glanced towards the sky again, Technoblade knew that wasn't even half the truth. 

"True, true. Well, let's go, boys." Quackity looked to his goons, gesturing to him stuck on the ground. "Fundy and Sam, you got him?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Yup."

Fundy looped a lead between where his wrists and ankles were tied together, and Technoblade had hoped they would at least give him the dignity of being carried. Instead they dragged him, Sam pulling all of the weight while Fundy walked along beside him, muzzle pulled into a grin. 

It was reminiscent of how people transported their kills behind their horses. Especially when a boar was too large to be hoisted or thrown over the saddle, it was trussed up and towed behind. And with his hands tied, feet bound, and limbs lashed to one another; the phrase _'hog-tied'_ really had a funny kind of truth to it. 

Fundy lifted his fist towards his chin, thumb flicking over an all too familiar rune-etched ring on his pointer finger. "Mission success, mister President." 

The tinny voice of Tubbo (Jesus, was he here too? Did they drag the whole damn continent here to do this?) filtered through and Technoblade barely picked it up over the sound of him being hauled through gravel and permafrost. 

"Good work, lads. The boats are all ready to go for when you get to shore." 

"Aye-aye." Fundy signed off, eyes sliding over to regard him. 

Fundy slipped a leather chord free from under the neckline of his uniform jacket, showing off another rune-etched ring dangling from it with a smug grin. The fox didn't have to say anything, Technoblade knew that it was his. And they must have looted his person too. An uncomfortable thought to imagine all their grubby, greedy little paws sifting through his pockets while he was knocked out. 

There went his attempts to contact Phil though. Not that Phil could do much here anyway. He was supposed to stay neutral, maintain contact between here and L'Manberg. He couldn't just blow his cover for a mild inconvenience like this…

Naw. He would find a way out of this himself. 

That didn't stop him from keeping an eye trained on the sky. The plumes of smoke from his cabin had already climbed high and stretched across the blue in a thick haze of ash. Bits of embers, off-white and gray, drifted down and mingled with the snow. He watched the dark twisting tendrils and masses of black clouds, vision unsteady and dimming at the edges, and he couldn't help but contort them into the looming pass of wings to blot out the sun. 

His eyes slipped closed. He thought maybe he could hear the raspy slide of feathers and the shrill ring of metal...

"--we're headed back now." 

Technoblade blinked and flinched back from the sting of salt in his nostrils and the foul curl of sea water on his tongue. The rock of the boat beneath him nearly sent him hurling and he pressed his forehead into the wood siding, hoping the sensation would pass. 

Someone clambered onto the dingy with him, it was hard to see who it was from the angle he had been dumped into the back at. His shoulders ached and his legs were having less than a great time, yet still nothing compared to the raw rub of his wrists. Every inch of movement was met by the sting of sisal rubbing into the steadily opening sores ringing them. 

Who knew being dragged along by just your wrists and ankles would have consequences? 

They were crossing the water slowly and steadily. Every splash of the oars into the sea was a reminder of how much closer he was to everything he had tried to retire from. 

_'Fight, fight, fight. They're distracted, they're distracted, slit their throat, gut them, choke them, drown them, drown th--'_

He ignored the voices, unsure whether their return was a good or bad sign. Neck cricked and snout pressed uncomfortably against the boat's bench, he tried to adjust his position and avoid more muscle cramps later. It wasn't great progress, he only managed to lift his head from the wood panels, but it was more than he had been able to do even ten minutes ago. Or had it been longer than that? Time felt like it was passing through his hands like sand through a sieve. 

He clenched his jaw, tongue dry and sat like stuffed cotton between his teeth. The mountainous visage of Dream's dominion loomed closer, cresting over the edges of the boat. Empty skies and the peaceful drift of the clouds overhead offered no sanctuary from the slow encroach of land. 

_'You can't give up. Can't give up. Have to get up. Use the rope. Break their neck. Break their--'_

Imagined flickers of what he could do danced behind his eyelids. Snapping the rope in two, wrapping his hands around their throat until he heard a wet crunch, shoving one half of a snapped oar through their rib cage, holding their head under water off the side of the boat until their flailing and kicking stilled. Instance after instance-- faded eyes, slacked jaws, muffled screams, bloodied gurgles, pleading, begging-- all of it roared and broiled at the tips of his hooves to the roots of his teeth. He gnashed and grit his jaw, tusks audible where top and bottom pairs met and ground them deadlier with each movement. He wanted to gore something, feel meat and bone and viscera give under his hands and-- 

"Hey, hey, you might want to give him another dose!" 

He pulled at the ropes, hearing them finally start to pop and fray like they should have before. Shouts and frantic voices filled his ears and only fueled his renewed vigor. A hand gripped his jaw, wrenching his head up. He had half a mind to try and bite the owner, before they were pouring the entire contents of a vial down his throat. 

He tried to cough it up, choked and spluttered and it tasted like liquid iron and copper, but it wasn't enough and he had to swallow some of it or drown as the hands held his head immobile, snout pointed to the sky. He searched for Phil up there, somewhere amongst the silhouettes of shore birds, eyes frantically skipping along them again and again and again and--

They released him and he crumpled against the belly of the boat, panting and truly willing himself to vomit this time. Maybe if he threw it all up it wouldn't take effect. It wouldn't make him useless again. He didn't want to be that weak again. 

If he got rid of it first, it wouldn't-- It wouldn't-- He would be able to-- 

If he could just--

If he could just…

... 

He jerked awake, wincing and hissing at the pound at his temple. The heady tang and musk of pine and fir nearly made him sneeze as he looked for the sky again only to find that tangled tree limbs and the canopy cover of leaves blotted it out. The occasional rock or root knocked into his ribs as they continued towing him along and he had to put all his energy into lifting his snout or get a mouthful of dirt and grass. 

Someone new was dragging him. They were tall, maybe taller than him, which was an impressive feat in itself, and while they didn't look strong, not in appearance alone, they were undaunted by the weight they were pulling. 

The cape they wore bore the eyes of an enderman. The purple-tinged eyes he had learned to avoid-- to cast his gaze away from and never regard in more than a flicker from the corner of his vision-- glared back at him from the fabric. The owner of the cape glanced back over his shoulder, and Technoblade caught the fleeting glimpse of one crimson eye before it widened and it's attention was turned forward once more. 

The end-touched stopped and Technoblade watched him fiddle with the rope. 

"You got it, Ranboo?" Tommy asked, and Technoblade didn't even try to stop the incensed burning that flared across his shoulders at the sound of the kid's voice. 

It at least meant they weren't in L'Manberg if he was still trailing along with them though. 

"Ah, yeah, sorry just… are you sure we can't like put him on one of the horses?" 

"Too heavy for ya?" Quackity asked from the side.

"Thought you ender-type were like stupid strong." Fundy chimed in. 

Ranboo laughed, strained and weak. "Only half ender." 

"To be fair it's not his fault the pig is shaped like a fucking barrel." Tommy grumbled. 

"Man, you almost sound jealous, Big T." Quackity laughed.

"I'm not jealous! I'm way more fucking ripped, I mean have you seen these guns." 

Somebody kill him. Somebody _please_ kill him. He'd rather die than be subjected to the torture of listening to every single idiot on the planet talk around him without being able to tell them how stupid they were. 

"I'll drag him." 

And Sam saved him the true torture of having to continue to endure whatever the fuck that was. Was he still being dragged to his fate? Sure. But he didn't have to listen to Tommy and the Idiot Brigade argue about whatever meager excuse for muscles they thought they had. 

Ranboo still hovered nearby as the journey continued, his steps quick and nearly stumbling, less graceful than the pressed suit and pristine shoes might have made him seem on first impressions. Technoblade could feel his eyes on him, but he had learned far too many times to not look any of the ender in the eye. 

Last time he had come face to face with an enderman he hadn't killed it. The promise of an ender pearl at the tip of his sword, but his hand had been stayed, faltered while the voices had cried and crooned for him to run it through. But the enderman had just stood there, it hadn't even phased away or skipped across the plane like it usually did. It just watched him, steady and unwavering, like it waited for the netherite to tear it in two. He never met its eyes with his own. 

And he didn't meet this ender's either. He couldn't and he wouldn't. 

_'He pities you, he's looking down on you, he knows you're weak, he knows, he knows, make him stop looking, make him stop, take his eyes, take his eyes, take his ey--'_

Technoblade huffed out a breath and shook his head. The voices swarmed and ebbed like gnats, and it had been nice when they had been gone, but now it was all numbness seeped into his bones and the voices only growing louder and louder. 

_'Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, pathe--'_

Technoblade pulled at his bonds, baring his teeth in a grimace as the rope split the skin at his wrists. 

"Got any doses left?" Quackity asked. 

He shook his head, pushed and strained harder against the rope. Not another. They were wearing off quicker and quicker it seemed, but he hated every second of it. It dragged at his limbs, until he felt more like a heap of bones piled on the floor than a person. 

"Only like three..." 

And Technoblade had never wanted to punch his little brother more than right in that moment. 

"Should be enough to get back if we gave him all three at once, right?" Fundy asked. 

"It won't kill him right?" And that was Ranboo with the voice of reason.

"I'm not gonna cry over it if it does." Quackity sneered. 

Hands gripped his tusks and used them to wrench his head up into a perfect mirror of the boat ride incident. He jerked his head to the side, tasted the blood on his lips before he heard the yelp from whoever he had slashed one of his bottom tusk into. 

"Jesus fuck, he has four of those fucking things?" Quackity cried, clutching at his hand, and Technoblade smiled, showing off the whole set, hoping the blood coated at least some of his teeth. 

"I mean they are just elongated canine teeth, right? Makes sense they'd be on the bottom and top jaw." Ranboo explained, and at least someone here had a brain cell to spare. 

"Nerd." Tommy coughed.

"Whatever, someone just fucking hold him." Quackity grumbled as he wrapped his hand. 

Sam had to save the day from all the incompetency once again and Technoblade had to wonder how much they were paying this guy to help them do this. It must be a lot. Or he just owed someone a favor. He couldn't imagine Sam would tag along with this group out of his own free will. 

Technoblade didn't have much time to contemplate it any longer, the sulfurous reek of gunpowder overwhelmed him as Sam held his head steady. His neck ached, muscles screaming for reprieve at the angle it was forced to twist into. 

Quackity seemed way too eager to be the one to give him the potion this time, and before Sam even had his jaw pried open the rim of a glass vial was clicking against his front teeth. It was just as foul tasting as before, the liquid closer to rotten blood than anything he could really put a name to. If they expected him to drink this shit three times in a row they were hilarious. 

He didn't have much of a choice in the matter though. And by the third one he was just trying not to pass out again, from the effects themselves or oxygen loss because Quackity seemed less than eager to give him a chance to breath. When Sam finally let him go he gagged, bile sat just at the back of his throat and rising--

"Shit, shit, don't let him throw it up!" 

A large hand clamped his snout shut and held him there like a vice. It stayed like that for a few minutes, until his eyes started to droop, until it became hard to hold up his head, until the fog draped back over him and all the tension wound from his muscles. Sam dropped him, grabbed up the rope lead, and they continued their march to L'Manberg. 

And he would really appreciate it if they stopped manhandling him for five seconds… He would appreciate it even more if they cut the rope, left him lying in the woods, and forgot all about him. 

Maybe he could try and appeal to their better nature, try and get them to give this up, convince them he was a changed man and that the past was behind them. 

Maybe… 

...maybe…

…

The rattling thud of his knees striking wood ripped him back to awareness and his head lolled, eyes rolling about to try and get some kind of bearing on the situation. There were hands hoisting up either arm and he was being dragged up a set of stairs, legs knocking into each step. His limbs were finally unbound, but for all the relief of that, it was useless. He couldn't move. He couldn't even keep his chin up. And he was pretty sure he was drooling onto his own uniform. 

Not a good look on him, admittedly. 

His eyes drifted shut again, the effort to keep them open greater than the promise of sleep…

The crack of his skull against the floor shook him from his stupor and he blinked dumbly. The pair of sneakers just inches from his snout could only belong to one person and he wanted to say anything, slur out a question, ask why he just watched and didn't do anything, why he didn't even try--

He blinked and the sneakers weren't there. And he couldn't even be confident they ever were. 

_'He did this, he betrayed you, he should pay, he should pay, make him pay, make him bleed, make him suffer--'_

The foot that buried itself in his ribs really did a good job shutting up the voices, and he would have thanked them for the reprieve if he wasn't left wheezing.

"Hope you didn't mind the trip here. Sorry we couldn't make it more comfortable for the great Technoblade!" Quackity crowed. 

Technoblade managed to crack open an eye, enough to see Quackity leaned over him, leering. He gestured to someone and Technoblade felt himself being forced to stand. It was a wobbly and unstable affair and he could feel whoever it was that got the shit end task to puppet him strain under the dead weight. There was a small bit of satisfaction in their discomfort. 

The satisfaction fizzled and died as Quackity lifted his chin up, forcing him to stare down the pillory at the center of the wooden platform they had dragged him up. 

How quaint. And how very unoriginal. Medieval Britain called and it wanted its torture method back. 

However morbidly funny the sight was, he wasn't too keen on getting locked up in the stocks. Not for these clowns and their little grudge against him. 

In his head and in a better world, he managed to pull away, push the hands off of him, and at least make it to the water before anyone caught him. In reality, they stepped him forward, inch by inch, pushed him to his knees, pressed him forward into the wooden structure until it cradled his neck and his wrists. The top half shut over him and he immediately tried to push up against it, bucking weakly at it. It didn't budge and he heard the clicking grind of a lock being latched and left to rot. 

Yeah, this wasn't good. This was the exact opposite of the definition of good. One might even venture to say this was bad. Or as Tommy might say, he was fucked. 

They had the decency to at least make it so he could kneel. As much of a consideration as that was. Or they just underestimated his height. Either way, he could at least entertain the idea of falling asleep. 

(A part of him distantly mulled over the idea that it was also a very convenient height to get in a good swing with an executioner's blade.)

He could finally see the sun properly from here too. It neared the start of evening, the sun well past mid day. The absence of anything on the horizon sent his gut down and further still. Fear wasn't a common enemy of his, and it wasn't exactly fear he felt now. The tip toe crawl of chilled fingertips along the nape of his neck were as phantom as his wishes for thunder-steeped wings. 

He closed his eyes, and all he could see was Phil finding him gone. Phil coming home to the smouldered bones of the cabin, to charred remains that jutted like the bleached rib cage of some great beast against the stark, pristine landscape. Phil searching through the embers, hands burning at the knuckles, fingers turned red and raw and angry as they clenched into fists and shook and trembled. 

He wondered if Phil could see him, locked up and displayed like the prized catch of a hunt gone well. He wondered if Phil knew. He wondered if Phil hadn't stopped them. He wondered why Phil didn't stop them--

"Welcome, citizens of L'Manberg!" 

Technoblade blinked blearily against the glow of torchlight. The sun had set and he hadn't even watched it happen. A small crowd of people murmured and stared at him from below his little stage. Oranges and yellows sliced their faces up, dissecting them in such a way that they appeared more ghoul and fiend poised at the gates of hell than people he had shared meals with, lived beside.

"Thank you for gathering here today, to witness this, the trial of one Technoblade." 

And that was Tubbo. He sounded-- He sounded like an actual president. The speech unclumsy, unstuttering. Calm, collected, unflinching as Tubbo read out the beginnings of the death knell that landed him here, and the one that might even end him.

He looked to the sky again. Only stars and the empty, endless void gazed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't guarantee regular updates but will try to post weekly. Plot is written out and a rough draft done at least but I spend forever editing (still missing things anyway) and rewriting or reworking shit that ended up not vibing


	4. Pig on Pegs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cursed maybe, but for ref this Techno has these hands basically- https://pin.it/1vRYEEw  
> Leaning pretty far into the humanoid pig thing. Like man is a big pig idk ajshhssbdb. 
> 
> Content Warnings: Mild torture. Tusk filing and improper hoof trimming and ear tagging done on a sentient pig person.

Tubbo stepped into view from where he had taken to the pulpit beside the stocks, addressing him and the crowd with an extended hand. "As the witnesses of today's trials, I ask that you withhold your judgement upon the accused at hand." 

And he wondered if this had been scripted, wondered if Tubbo had spent hours, hunched over a desk and penning down every little word he would say for when he finally got him up here and under the knife. 

"As a merciful state--" 

He snorted at that and someone smacked the top of the pillory, as a warning he presumed. Tubbo cleared his throat, and, for the first time since he had started, Technoblade heard him stutter and watched him glance back towards him. 

"Uh, as I was saying-- As a merciful state, we will hold a trial for the accused. At the start of the next sunset a verdict will be given that will determine if the accused is to be executed or let free." 

"I have to say, I do prefer the second option." He drawled lazily, words slurring slightly. 

This time a hand reached over and tugged his ear until he wrenched it out of their grip and bared his teeth at the offending appendage. 

Tubbo turned to look at him finally. Stood before him, in a mockery of their positions when Jschlatt had ordered Tubbo killed like an unruly dog and had behested his most loyal of the pack to do so. He followed the path of the scars that spidered up from the collar of his suit and wrapped around his throat and up to cup his chin like angry, seeking fingers. Technoblade still recalled the smell. Charred flesh and smoldering hair, burning wool and fabric, nothing new to him, but so different at the time. 

It had taken nothing to turn away and fire upon the crowd below, knowing that Tubbo's death wouldn't be permanent, even if a part of him thought about how the pain was. He wondered if Tubbo sat up at night, remembering the hissing pop and fizz of fireworks, the stench of blasting powder and the spiral red-white of the notched crossbow as it was leveled square against his chest. The death itself didn't haunt Technoblade, but the eyes did. 

And his eyes were different now. Steely, walled up-- before they had been like swinging doors, one emotion in, another out, you could read every single thing the kid was thinking with a glance. Now, it was slate and cobblestone and everything unfeeling and harsh. Maybe it was just for him, maybe he deserved this at least. The derision of a once dead man-- a child really. And they really had elected a child to their throne and expected him to carry the weight of a country. A weight which men of more experience and stronger will crumbled beneath eventually. 

It was only a matter of time. 

"Technoblade." 

He raised his chin higher as Tubbo addressed him directly. 

"You have been brought before the citizens of L'Manberg for the following crimes." Tubbo pulled free a piece of parchment from his suit. 

"This should be good…" He muttered, dropping his head until the pillory dug uncomfortably into his neck.

"Terrorism and ideations of terrorism against the country, the summoning of a withers to deliberately cause both destruction and wanton casualty upon citizens and property, sedition and the conspiration of a coup against the government of L'Manberg." 

He furrowed his brows at that last one. Tongue still heavy in his jaw, he spoke despite the way his vision still doubled and pulsed at the edges. "Uh...for the record, I helped you people run your own coup against an elected government, so it really seems a bit unfair to turn around and pin that charge on me." 

Tubbo frowned, fingers curling into the paper. He folded it back up, slowly and deliberately, and his eyes didn't stray far from Technoblade's, and he had never quite seen Tubbo ever look like that. He blinked, eyelids dropping for a second as nausea and fatigue caught up to him, and when he opened them to see Tubbo, the curls of hair to either side of his ears morphed to horns, and when he blinked again they were gone. Shaking his head, he realized that maybe whatever they had given him hadn't completely worn off. 

"And for the murder of a L'Manbergian citizen under the order of a tyrannical government." Tubbo finished, the list of crimes already folded up and hidden. 

Technoblade had a feeling that this one wasn't on Tubbo's script.

He sagged in the pillory, knees already smarting where he was forced to kneel against the wood planks, wrists aching from the uncomfortable angle they were held at, and his neck had a crick in that he would have liked to rub at. And he was tired. The urge to close his eyes, tune out the whole lot of them and sleep was overwhelming. 

His eyes rolled towards the crowd when he thought he saw blonde hair, he squinted at it, the blurry swathes of red and white accompanying it impossible, because he couldn't be here among then-- he was banished after all. A shake of his head had it all turning to smoke and he wondered if seeing things was going to be another tick mark in the playbook of him slowly questioning his sanity. 

Tubbo continued reading decrees and going through the steps of a formal trial, without his input or even pausing for a chance to defend himself. He called people up to the stand, like it was a courtroom, and he was the judge, the jury, and the potential executioner. Technoblade tried to focus on the faces of those who came forward, but they kept morphing and shifting. And it was a dusty, soot-stained trench coat and fingerless gloves and a grin so wide it might split in two, and scuffed sneakers and ripped jeans and a baseball tee and gray-tinted wings and a worn out bucket hat-- And it wasn't any of them. He knew none of them were here. But everywhere he looked they were standing there, watching, waiting, saying nothing and just judging and judging and judging-- 

He gnashed his teeth, felt his tusks click and grind against one another, and he focused on that sensation as he surveyed the crowd. Phil still wasn't here. Hopefully they hadn't gotten to him. Worst case scenario would be them finding out his connection to him and exploiting that somehow. Or Phil had gotten side tracked somewhere. He would laugh his ass off if this whole time Phil had gotten himself stuck in the nether and was trying to call him for an assist. 

_Sorry, Phil, can't get to the phone right now, I'm on trial._

Tubbo continued the proceedings, explained the punishments and how the trial would proceed, and he listened with half an ear, the other taken up by the voices all clambering and crying, filling up the empty space in his skull that wasn't occupied with the single question of; _how would he get out of this one?_.

"Technoblade." Tubbo addressed him again and he checked back in with a harsh huff of breath and a grunt. "You will remain here until the next sunset. No food or water. You will think about your actions as we deliberate over the evidence brought against you and come to a verdict." 

"Good to know L'Manberg recognizes the writ of habeus corpus at least." He deadpanned. 

Tubbo blinked. "The what?"

"Nevermind." 

Tubbo turned to face the crowd again, an eye peeking back over his shoulder for a moment, before he gestured to the crowd. "This trial is adjourned. The verdict will be given tomorrow." 

The president of the toddler micro-nation left the stage and Technoblade curled his lip at the crowd that lingered and stared. 

_'You could kill them all, kill them all, you've done it before, you have, you could slaughter them, watch them run and scatter like sheep, feel them turn to meat and blood under your hands and teeth and--'_ He shook his head to rid himself of the tempting croon. 

The crowd didn't disperse in the wake of Tubbo's exit. They stood and watched, some of them murmuring amongst each other and turning back to him with wide eyes. And he remembered watching some of them dissapear under the pop and color of explosives, the crumbling touch of a wither, folding and falling under his sword-- He had hurt all of them in some way in the past. If not directly, then indirectly. To them, he was a monster. Something you told stories about and hoped never crossed into the light. 

He kept his chin high, tried to keep some sense of dignity even as their unerring gazes burned along his shoulders. That dissipated when something sharp struck across the side of his cheek. It pinged against the wooden boards and he turned his head to see what it was. A small stone, the sharp corner tinted with a speck of crimson, sat innocently amongst the boards of the platform. It was followed by a cluster of laughter, the sting of humiliation blossoming hot under his cheeks. 

It was school yard bullying at best, nothing close to torture or scarring, but it burned. It burned and writhed and he didn't like the way they smiled; flat teeth, blunt smiles, no tusks, all human. And he knew some of them weren't, that they weren't all the same, but the animals here, the ones like him, they might as well have been human for all the ways they turned a blind eye or picked up a stone to cast judgement. 

It was always the same script. Just a pig. An animal. Of course he didn't like government, a thing like him wouldn't understand civility. That he was the reason for all of this. 

The words were nothing new. He had heard it all before. From Tommy and Quackity-- any one of them really, the ones who swore he had crossed them, when he was only doing what he had promised from the start. He had been honest in all the ways they hadn't. He told them he did this for no government, that he would pledge fealty to no god, nor king, nor man. They claimed they did this for freedom, but left kneeling, penned and stuck like any other animal, he knew the freedom they fought for was never going to be his own. 

He was just a pig after all. Who cared if he was slaughtered in the name of revenge and justice. 

And there were a few who seemed discontent with the crowd's behavior. Most indifferent or just witnessing passively, but a few looked powerless under the weight of this.

Ranboo was one of them, ironically the one who had also helped drag him here. He seemed uncomfortable, fidgeting and shifting his weight like he would rather run towards or away from what he was witnessing. The ender-touched flinched and cowed and hissed sympathetically under his breath from where he stood beside a stony-faced Sam. Technoblade only recalled he was the one who reeked of brimstone and potential, and he found himself looking at the crown he wore atop dual-toned hair. A crown that did not feel as much of a mockery as his own, but rather more of a promise somehow. That somehow Ranboo would continue the reign of kings and kings, until this country tired of sitting children atop thrones or died trying to continue the cycle. 

It was ages before they all tired of the routine and began to disperse, filtering from the docks in a slow trickle until the place ran dry and it was just him. Phil still hadn't made himself known. Technoblade knew his house was right where the square was. He didn't have much range of motion with his neck trapped like it was, but if he could just see around the corner of the post he'd be able to maybe look into the windows of his house and-- 

"Here piggie, piggie!" 

He rolled his eyes. He thought he would finally get some peace and quiet, but apparently that was hoping for too much when he was in the midst of clown car country. 

Fundy and Quackity stepped into view, rounding the pillory from either side and standing shoulder to shoulder as they glared down at him, butcher aprons still on, Quackity still sporting his cloak and crown. It was all needlessly dramatic. And he didn't miss the rope and ferrier clippers in Fundy's clawed hands, or the coiled up gigli wire in Quackity's still bandaged one. 

The wrappings were stained red and he wondered why Quackity didn't just go get a potion for the wound, but the man was as stubborn as he was stupid. Speaking of stupid, Fundy held up the clippers and grinned from ear to ear. 

"Oh no, torture, how could I have ever guessed this would happen," he deadpanned. "Does Tubbo even know you clowns are here?" 

"Not exactly." Fundy said. 

"He said as long as he doesn't see it, it's fair game." Quackity shrugged, grinning. 

"Amazing leadership skills, truly." 

"Hey, don't insult the president. At least he's not a fucking traitor, Technoblade." Fundy snarled. 

"And please, explain exactly how I'm the traitor." 

"You blew up L'Manberg!" Fundy spit. 

Technoblade held up a hoofed finger. "Correction; Wilbur blew up L'Manberg. Starting to feel like I'm the only person who remembers that for some reason." 

"The withers--" 

He rolled his eyes. "If I had a coin for every time one of you brought that up..." 

"Why'd you do it then?" Quackity asked. 

"You were starting a government right in front of me! Literally right in front of me, after I gave you my tools and my help!"

"And?" Fundy asks like he didn't just explain himself. 

"That's literally the most consistent character trait I have! 'I hate government.' How many times do you have to hear it?" 

Quackity crouched and grabbed his chin, held him in place even as he tried to tug out of his grip. "Why do you hate it so much?" 

And he asked it low and venomous, like he was both genuinely curious and uttering a threat from between grit teeth.

Technoblade swallowed, wishing he had the reach to wrench the fingers off of him. "I don't have time to explain an entire character's arc worth of content to you, Quackity."

"Fine." Quackity gestured to Fundy who clambered up on top of the pillory. "Then if you're going to act like a fucking animal, what if we treat you like one?"

Technoblade tried to track Fundy's movements, figure out why he had gone to sit up there, and he glanced at the legs that dangled to either side of his head. 

"How is being an anarchist equivalent to acting like an animal, that doesn't even make any se--" 

The scratchy fray of a rope looped between his teeth and wrenched up, Fundy's legs clamping to either side of his head and neck to hold him steady. He thrashed, tugging at where his wrists were caught inside the pillory until his wrists ached. 

"Hey, Techno," Quackity drawled, unspooling the wire in his hand until the handle clacked against the boards. "Did you know, domestic pigs grow tusks too? But to stop them from hurting others in the herd and their owners, they file the tusks down." Quackity grabbed the other handle, letting the wire shine under the torchlight and glisten dangerously. "And I think you've gone too long without a trim." 

He bit against the rope and tried to gnaw his teeth through it, but it wasn't thin enough for that and Fundy pulled it higher and higher until he couldn't keep his jaws shut. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Quackity looped the wire and he felt it catch around his bottom tusk on the right side. Tossing his head or wrenching away was futile as Fundy kept him still with the rope and his legs and it probably looked reminiscent of some kind of fucked up barnyard scene, except he wasn't a domestic pig and these two chuckleheads were far from farmers. 

It was one thing when he had done this himself, with the blunt end of a file, or just naturally over time as his tusks had taken care of themselves. But being manhandled like any common show pig was-- _unsavory_.

_'Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, you can't let them do this, they're beneath you, they're nothing, you're weak, weak weak weak weak weak we--_

And the mantra didn't stop, it spun and spun and wound it's way around every inch of him as the wire pulled taut against his tusk and he felt the first slow drag of it against his tooth, bottom jaw wrenching down along with it. The laughter was the worst part, not even the ache down to the bone as Quackity yanked the wire back and forth and the disgusting, rancid, taste of bone, hot and burnt from the friction being forced upon it, coated his tongue and filled his nostrils. It was over before he even remembered it starting, the pressure on his tusk dissapeared as the sharp clink and roll of something hitting the boards echoed up to him. 

The rope eased until it left his mouth completely and Fundy's legs vanished as the fox hopped down to snatch up the partial tusk. He held it up to the torchlight, turning it about like it was a precious gem, and then pocketed it with a smirk. Technoblade ran his tongue over the sore spot along his gum line, and inspected the remaining, now dull and flat, edge of the tusk. And at least they weren't dumb enough to cut down to the root. Or maybe they just weren't good at this whole torture thing. 

"Is that it genuises?" He managed, despite the way he breathed a bit heavier than usual and sweat cropped along the back of his neck.

"Shut the fuck up, Technoblade." Quackity muttered from where he was fixing the bandages around his hand, presumably having slipped and ripped open the wound as he used the wire. 

"You all are the ones who came to me. You could just leave." 

"We're not done yet." Quackity said, passing over the wire for the clippers. 

"Those aren't even the right ones for--" 

Quackity grabbed his jaw, very deliberately on the side where his usual defense was all but useless. "You think I give a fuck?" 

Technoblade narrowed his eyes, glared up at him and ignored the way the voices swelled and ebbed and gnawed at him like insects, insistent and demanding despite his predicament. The urge to bust in every single tooth grinning down at him like a graveyard was intoxicating. 

"Can I do it?" Fundy asked, interrupting Quackity and his staring contest as he grabbed for the clippers. 

"No, just hold hi--" 

"But you got to do the other thing and I wanted to--" 

"We agreed I'd do the work and you'd help hold him still, Fun--" 

"I changed my mind!" 

"Dude, you can't just fucking--" 

"You two could at least pretend you have a brain cell to spare between both of you." He interrupted. 

He would really rather be asleep or really doing anything else besides listening to these two squabble over this. 

"No one asked you, Techno." Quackity sneered. 

They seemed to finally come to an agreement, Quackity letting Fundy trim one hand and him the other. He didn't really care. He just wanted this to be done so he could deal with the growing headache and the way his stomach roiled and the way he kept seeing people that weren't there lingering at the edges of light the torches cast around the docks. 

The way Fundy slotted the clippers over the first hoofed portion of his hand had him wincing. He was definitely going to trim well past the point you should. And it was nothing like when Phil helped him figure out how to care for his hooves and tusks as a kid. Or when he had gotten his first file, or gone to another cloven-hoofed humanoid to figure out the routine to clean his hooves and keep them properly trimmed himself. This was no care or consideration given to the fact he was living and breathing and sentient and that he didn't even sound like a pig as the clippers bit into his hand and he couldn't help the small choked off yell that clawed its way out of him. 

The fact he sounded just as human and as much of a person as them didn't seem to matter. The fact his hand bled and his eyes had turned frantic as he tried to desperately watch for the next move Fundy made didn't matter either. 

They continued until both his hands ached so bad it felt like he had been reduced to bloody stumps and elbows, that his forearms had shattered and crumbled into nothing. Bile pushed so hard at the back of his throat he thought about just giving in to it, but he tried to reign in some dignity in the face of the two still leering at him. 

He thought they would finally just leave after that, but apparently that was too much to ask for as Quackity pulled out a device that looked more like a hole punch than anything he had seen before. A small, flat metal wire bent into a hollow triangle was slotted into the maw of it, and Quackity wrenched his head to the side by his ear. The pinch that followed wasn't the worst pain they had put him through and he only winced before it faded away almost immediately. The humiliation of knowing they had just left an ear tag in his ear didn't fade though. 

The pigs and other farmed animals in L'Manberg all had the tags. Little metal pieces with numbers and other indentifications stamped into them. He didn't want to know what number and ownership Quackity had just pierced into his. Even Fundy looked uncomfortable at the addition, staring at it and avoiding eye contact when Technoblade tried to meet his eyes. And even though he couldn't see under the fur, he had a feeling Fundy would have looked a bit pale and green around the gills at the sight. 

Quackity flicked at the ear tag, crouching to be eye to eye with him. "We're going to kill you tomorrow, you know that right, Techno?" 

Technoblade swallowed and bared his teeth in a grimace. "What happened to a fair trial?" 

"You know you're guilty." 

"Do I?" 

"Doesn't matter if you know. You just have to die." 

"Why?" 

"Because you're in my way." 

Technoblade's brow furrowed at that. Even Fundy seemed put off, glancing between the two of them, hands clasped around the bloodied clippers he held close to his chest. 

"You're one of the only things standing between me and getting what I want." 

"What do you want, Quackity?" He rasped. 

Quackity just grinned, took off the crown, and placed it on Technoblade's head. And even though it was his own crown, it didn't really feel like it anymore. 

"See you tomorrow, Techno." Quackity waved over his shoulder as he stepped off the platform and Fundy hurried after him. The fox only hesitated for a moment, turning to look at him, before shaking his head and hurrying after Quackity. 

_'You just let them get away with it. You let them hurt you. You let them tag you. You let them. You let them. You let them. Weak weak weak weak weak--'_

Apparently the voices were in a patronizing mood still. He let his head hang in the pillory. The added weight of the ear tag negligible, but it felt like a stone for how much it dragged and tugged at him. It was all too noticeable where it sat. And his mouth still tasted like bone and tooth and his hands ached something fierce. He fidgeted, adjusting his knees and wishing he didn't have to kneel here for the next twelve hours or more. Tongue puffy and stuffed more with cotton than flesh he licked his lips and wished he had some water. He wished he had a lot of things. Like food, and a warm bed, and that he was back in his cabin, and the had never let Tommy into his house and had never trusted him in the first place and that Phil was here and that the pounding at his temple would go away. 

And his head _hurt_. It felt like it might split and spill out a slopping mess of gray matter onto the docks. His limbs were trapped in a cycle of feeling too numb and too much and pins and needles danced their way up and down them. A growing reminder that he had been likely overdosed on something and was lucky he wasn't choking on his own vomit. 

He wasn't lucky enough to escape what the silence did to him though. With nothing to focus on, no pain to ground him, no taunts and jeers and jibes, he drifted about in his own head and stared blankly and emptily at the shift and flicker of flames blanketed over the wood grain under him. His shadow mixed with the stocks morphed into a beast that clawed its way towards and away from him. There were more of the people, the ones who weren't exactly real, standing just at his peripherals and he couldn't tell if it was the voices or them that spoke like the humming buzz of a swarm of flies. They writhed and pulsed like maggots in the tender flesh of his sanity and he tried to ignore them. Shut his eyes and make them go away, but every time he opened them they pressed closer and with reaching fingers and gaping mouths and the ebb and flow of their cries and wails clogged his ears until he felt like his head was crushed between a vice, winding tighter and tighter and tigh-- 

"Techno?" 

Technoblade shook and trembled, grit his teeth and tried to make it all stop. The voices were too loud it was all too loud and too close and he could see blood spilling and rising and it would reach his chin and clog his mouth and his throat and his lungs if he didn't get away from it-- 

"Technoblade?" 

A shake of his head didn't dislodge the use of his name from where it stuck in his ear and burrowed deeper and deeper. The press of a hand, warm and rasping and real against the side of his face wasn't part of the usual routine and he jerked and blinked. His vision swam and then focused on the armored boots before him. He followed them up and up until he saw Phil, his brows furrowed in concern and eyes pinched. 

"What did they do to you?" 

"Phil…" he breathed, and he wasn't sure if this Phil was real, but even if it wasn't it didn't really matter. 

Fingers brushed the ear tag and, despite his best efforts, he flinched away from the sensation it sent to the back of his skull. 

"Don't." He murmured, eyes cast anywhere but Phil's own. 

"What the fuck did they put it on you for?" Phil asked, usual levity to his voice vanished for the roll of anger like the onset of a storm.

"Quackity thought it'd be funny probably." 

"Jesus." 

"Uh..." Technoblade grimaced. "Could you, uh, take it out?" 

"Shit, mate, of course-- One second. Let me just--'" 

There was a sharp pinch and then the ping of metal bouncing off wood. 

"There you go." Phil said and Technoblade didn't miss the way his voice shook slightly. 

"Thanks." 

"I brought some food and water if you felt up to some." 

"Water maybe, but food, eh, not so much." He admitted, shifting his wrists in the pillory. "Uh, I hate to ask, but I can't exactly--" 

"It's fine." 

Phil helped him drink some water from a shallow bowl, an otherwise humiliating moment if he wasn't so damn thirsty. The liquid settled and roiled alongside the bile and he hoped he wouldn't throw up in front of Phil. He stared at the man's boots and willed the nausea to go away, and he noticed the blinking red light and leather strap belted around Phil's ankle. 

He squinted at it. "Is that--" 

"Yeah. I'm--" Phil started, sighing. "They've got me under house arrest for refusing to help them." 

"That sucks." 

Phil looked him over. "I think it could be worse."

"I've had worse." He shrugged, the motion awkward in the stocks. "They didn't even water board me this time." 

Phil laughed, but sobered quickly, frowning. "This isn't right." 

He said nothing. 

"They're pinning everything on you. Jesus, I mean, Wilbur's the one who blew everything to kingdom come in the first place!" 

"I _did_ summon the withers." Technoblade murmured, the echo of all the voices that had thrown that at him chanting in the back of his head. 

Phil waved him off. "Maybe, but you didn't cause everything. You just ended it. " 

"They need their scape goat-- or scape pig, I guess." He chuckled. 

Phil frowned. "Convenient to blame the outsider." 

"Eh, convenience is all they really know." 

Phil looked out towards the first sparks of the sunrise. "Did they say whether they'd…. If you'll be--" 

"Killed?" 

Phil flinched. 

"Naw. I think they're just gonna lock me up in super prison forever or something." He lied and he felt bad about the way Phil's shoulders fell with relief. 

"And what if they--"

"Technoblade never dies." He smirked, lips pulling around his tusks. 

Phil laughed thinly. "Right." 

"Look, they'll probably get bored anyway. These people have the attention span of gnats. They'll probably forget I'm even here by sunset." 

Phil opened his mouth, like he had more to say, but the ankle monitor beeped and Phil glanced down at the blinking red light. "Shit, I've got to go, but stay safe, alright?"

"I'll do my best, can't guarantee much all things considered." 

"That's fair." Phil muttered, hesitating. "Goodbye, Techno." 

He sent Phil a half-hearted and awkward parting salute and watched the man hurry back towards his house out of view. The entourage would probably be by to make sure Phil hadn't left his house later. And the quiet immediately pressed in around him, the purples and the tinge of reds and oranges eating up the hellish brimstone of the torchlight. 

The voices pulled and flowed like a tide and it was hard to hear them very well, drawn back and far away, like they were waiting for something. He watched and waited for the rise of bodies and people and for anyone to amble by and provide some kind of distraction as he waited and waited for the end of the trial. He knew the verdict, there was no way they wouldn't stamp him with guilty and shift him under the chopping block to be butchered.

He would never be marked innocent. Not in this country. The ear tag glinted in the rising sun, the sparkle and shine of it bright and searing amongst the plain dull grain of wood, the numbers pressed into the metal stood like little soldiers, guns and knives turned against him. 

Maybe if he died it wouldn't be that bad. At least he wouldn't have to watch this place make the same mistake over and over and over and-- The scuffed and dirt-stained sneaker that stepped noiselessly beside the metal wasn't what he expected and his brow furrowed.

"Oh, so now big man doesn't give a fuck if hes gonna get fucking killed? What happened to the whole, look at me, I'm Technoblade and I never die." 

He blinked. "Tommy, what the--?" 

Tommy glared at him, somehow, impossibly, just standing in the middle of L'Manberg like he wouldn't be killed on sight if Dream saw him. "You're just going to give up then?" 

"Aren't you banned?"

"I am." 

Technoblade frowned. "You're literally-- Tommy, you're literally standing right in front of me." 

"Am I?" 

The more he inspected him the more things didn't add up. He didn't look as banged up as he had in his cabin for one thing. None of the bandaged burns or bruises and his eyes were bluer and had less of that far away look to them. This Tommy looked cleaner around the edges and more like the memory of the person rather than the reality. 

"Oh, so I'm full on crazy then." 

Not-Tommy shrugged. "I wouldn't say that." 

"Tom-- Whoever--" He shook his head. "Whatever you are, I'm literally hallucinating a full body person right now, I don't see how that's the definition of sanity." 

"You're the one who keeps talking to me. You could just fucking ignore me." 

Technoblade laughed. "Now I know you're not the real, Tommy. He would _never_ say that." 

Not-Tommy rolled his eyes. And it was weird. It was so weird for him to be standing there, and he looked real. He looked as real as Phil had, as any of the others, but it was off, it was off and he couldn't-- He couldn't put his finger on it. Why would he even decide to hallucinate his little brother of all people? It could have been Phil. At least he wouldn't want to brain himself against the stocks. 

"If you're just going to stare you can take a fucking picture." 

Technoblade grit his teeth. "Okay, no, I'm not about to sit here and get bullied by my own head." 

"Not like you have much of a choice, bruv." Not-Tommy gestured to the stocks.

"Thanks for the reminder." 

"So, what're you gonna do, big man?" 

"Why do you even care? You literally got me into this mess!" 

"I didn't." 

"Fine-- Other you, whatever."

Not-Tommy crossed his arms. "Why'd you even let him into your house?" 

"Uh, I don't know, 'cause his dumb ass was gonna freeze out in the snow." 

"Why not let him?" 

"Because he may be stupid, but he doesn't deserve to die like that." 

"So you care about him?" 

Technoblade paused. "... Is this an interrogation?" 

"No." 

"Alright, well, in that case, I'm gonna ignore you now. So, go away or whatever." 

Not-Tommy decided that instead of leaving, he would sit down, cross-legged in front of him. "You still have until sunset before they kill you, you know." 

"And I'd like to get some shut-eye before then, thanks." 

There was an awkward pause, a moment where he considered pretending to pass out just to escape it. Until Not-Tommy tilted his head, considering him. 

"You know how you called him Theseus." Not-Tommy started, looking towards the sun creeping up the sky. "Have you ever thought about who you are?"

"Never really considered it, no." 

Not-Tommy hummed. "You know Achilles." 

"I am familiar." 

"I think your heel is them." 

"Who?" 

And he didn't have to ask. He really didn't. It was the same reason he kept seeing Phil and Wilbur and Tommy and all of them every time he knew they weren't there. Why sometimes their voices were the loudest among the others that jumbled up in his head and demanded his attention. The same reason he had let Tommy walk his way into his cabin, poison his drink, and land him here. The same reason why even if Tommy had betrayed him, even if that stung somewhere deep under his sternum, he would still drag him in out of the snow, still offer him a warm seat by the fire, and food, and let him do it all over again. 

And he hated that they had turned around and used that against him.

When he looked up from where he had found himself staring at the metal ear tag again, Not-Tommy was gone and replaced by a whole lot of nothing. He sighed. Now it was just waiting. 

Or not, he thought, as he heard the clip-clop of hooves and the half-hearted bleet of a sheep. The whole damn calvary was apparently going to stop by to bother him today. 

"Technoblade?" 

And that was definitely Ghostbur. The ghost himself rounding into his view with a lead connected to the deepest blue sheep Technoblade had ever seen. 

Ghostbur stopped in front of him, grinning ear to ear. "Have you met Friend, Technoblade?" 

"Ghostbur I am… a little bit busy at the moment, if you haven't noticed." 

"Oh, well, I just wanted you to meet Friend. I found him out near your cabin, but you weren't there when I came to visit you and it had been burnt down and I was worried maybe you had gotten hurt, but I'm glad you're okay." 

"I'm… _'Okay_ ' is a strong word in this context." 

Ghostbur blinked, frowning like he had just noticed the predicament Technoblade was in. "Why are you locked up like that?"

"Tubbo is trying to execute me." 

Ghostbur gaped a bit before his face scrunched. "Why would Tubbo do that?" 

"Beats me, honestly. I'm just as confused as you." 

Ghostbur reached into his pockets, the powdery filter of blue dust sifting out into the air at the motion, and he drew his hand back out, the silty, shimmery substance sitting at the center of his palm. "Here, have some blue." 

"Ghostbur, I really don't, uh, I'm kind of on a lot of other stuff right now, and I don't know if that will--"

Before he could convince him otherwise Ghostbur sprinkled the blue over him, like some weird fairy godmother, and he closed his eyes. It didn't feel like it did much. He wondered what the whole point of this whole blue thing was anyway. 

Ghostbur hummed. "Maybe you just need more--" 

"Ghostbur, no, look, Ghostbur-- Hey!" 

Ghostbur startled from where he had dug back into his pockets. 

"I don't need more blue... Look, Ghostbur, I think-- Phil might be upset for a while after sunset today. I need you to--" Technoblade frowned, glancing down. "I need you to give him some of that blue later, okay? As much as he wants or needs." 

"Why? Is Phil sad, Techno?" 

Technoblade pressed his lips thin. Tried not to think about how Phil would probably watch it all happen. However they chose to do it. A knife, poison, fire, drowning-- Whatever method they concocted, it would end with him dead. And they wouldn't stop at the first death, they'd wait until he woke back up in the stocks and they'd do it all over again, until he didn't wake up at all. 

And Phil would have to watch every single little part of it. 

"No, he's not sad. Not right now. Just-- He's stuck in his house right now if you wanted to keep him company. You could show him Friend." 

"Oh, you're right!" Ghostbur grinned, tugging on Friend's lead. "Come on, Friend." 

Technoblade, while grateful he didn't have to suffer under Ghostbur throwing enough blue over him to literally turn him blue, regretted the quiet that Ghostbur left in his wake. And he still didn't try to think too hard about how Wilbur and Ghostbur might as well have been two different people for how they acted. There were glimpses of Wilbur there, somewhere among the empty eyes and wide smiles. But it was like someone had taken him, scooped out all the anger, the sadness, the 'bad stuff', and left all the other parts, as if that somehow made a whole person and not just a shadow.

He wondered if he would end up like that too.

The diacarded ear tag became his safe haven as he retreated back to emptily gazing at it. His thoughts pin balled around, from place to place with little coherency, and the sun climbed higher and higher, beating down on the exposed parts of skin. The burning was unexpected, and he hadn't ever been stupid enough to stand under the full sun and get truly burnt, but now he couldn't exactly escape it. And it sapped every ounce of moisture from him within an hour, turned his tongue drier than sand by the third, and by the fifth, as the sun began to descend further and further towards the end of its journey, his face and neck stung something fierce. 

Finally, the vestiges of sunset tinged the sky, and he watched the sun creep further and further below the horizon and it felt like a pendulum blade swinging overhead. Slowly, so slowly, inching towards his chest, before the blade finally grazed skin and ate up flesh beneath it's swinging arch. 

They trickled in slowly, meandering forth like shambling puppets and for some reason he couldn't see their strings. Quackity and Fundy returned as well, hopping up onto the platform and taking their positions out of view behind him. Others filtered in after, and he recognized some faces. Ponk, Ranboo, Sam, Puffy, Niki, even Punz was there-- Technoblade squinted at him. It looked like he had his fist rested under his chin, just watching the others around him and the scene beginning to unfold here. But Technoblade didn't miss the way his lips occasionally moved, barely noticeable if one wasn't looking hard enough, nor did he miss the ring on his finger. 

Tubbo waded through the crowd as it parted for him and he found his attention far too occupied to wonder who Punz could be talking to over his communicator. The president stepped up to the platform, each footstep upon the stairs the toll of bells in his ears, the raspy, throaty call of crows, and Tubbo stopped before him, hands clasped behind his back as he stood tall, chin tipped up. 

"Technoblade." 

Technoblade leveled him with a glare he hoped Tubbo could feel down to his core. 

"We have come to a verdict." 

"Wait, let me guess, you've decided to kill me." 

And he really hoped Ghostbur was distracting Phil enough that he wouldn't look out his window or stand on his balcony and watch this go down. He could at least give Phil that small mercy, of not having to watch him die. 

"We have found you guilty for the charges that have been brought against you." Tubbo paused, gesturing to something behind Technoblade. "And your punishment for these crimes, is death." 

"Surprise, surprise," he muttered, even as his heart crawled it's way up his throat. 

"Quackity," Tubbo said. "If you would…" 

"Yes, _sir_." Quackity said with way too much enthusiasm. 

Technoblade watched out of the corner of his eye as Quackity rounded the pillory, a sword in hand, and he supposed this was fitting somehow. He hadn't been sure how they were going to do it, but old fashioned blade execution was something. He had chopped at enough necks to know they wouldn't get a clean swipe through his own, and maybe that was the point they were going for. 

He didn't close his eyes, even as Quackity raised the blade, the enchanted steel flashing and reflecting the last bloody vestiges of sunset. He didn't flinch, even as he heard the whistle, the tale-tell whine of a sword cutting through air, even as he could practically already feel it there even if he knew it wasn't-- 

He just hoped Phil didn't see this-- 

The shattering pop of glass, the sudden reek of smoke and sulfur and the ring of steel against steel sent him blinking. Green and leather and buckles took up his immediate line of sight and he stared uncomprehendingly at Dream holding back Quackity's blade with his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ✌️😔 Dream here finally baYbeE  
> Haha he pissed though and I liked how canon went, but I thought maybe, perhaps, he could 👀 be more pissed off. But that's for next chapter.


	5. Candles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me realizing I have to pretend to know what I'm doing after my fic actually gets attention like: 👁️👄👁️  
> 
> 
> **Content Warning:  
> **  
>  Graphic depictions of violence. And Temporary (or nearly) major character death. 

Silence overtook the docks, a hush settled over the crowd as metal squealed and caught and struggled against each other in a stand still hovered over his neck. And he would have appreciated it if there weren't now _two_ swords overhead. Dream pushed up on Quackity's blade and he heard the tell-tale grunt and struggle of a losing battle as the presence of sharpened death trailed further away. 

Technoblade had never really seen the guy truly angry before, like maybe a handful of times, and it wasn't like you could see his face anyway, but everything about his body language screamed _pissed_. 

"Quackity," Dream's voice pierced through the still air and it rang and rang. "Drop it." 

Quackity pushed down harder, gritting his teeth in a bared snarl."No, fuck you, I'm not just going to fucking--" 

The shine and glint of a smaller blade flickered into view as Dream pulled it from his belt, holding Quackity back with sword in the other, and slashed it across the space that was currently occupied by Quackity's neck. First, it was the ringing of a sword falling to the floor, and then the hot splattering drops of blood peppered his snout and face and coated the pillory and the wooden boards as the choked gurgle accompanied the patter and spill of red from the angry slash across Quackity's throat. Technoblade stared and stared as it poured endlessly, like uncorked and tipped wine, and Dream just stood there, flecks of it smattering the porcelain surface of the impassive smiling mask and turning muddy against the kelly green of his jacket. 

The desperate, whimpering burbles of a slaughtered animal clattered around the docks and no one dared move as Quackity tried to speak and blood fell from his lips, hands wrapped around his throat, as if he could stave off the flood. Knees struck with a thud as he collapsed and fell onto his side, still desperately pushing and pressing at the endless wave of red that didn't stop. 

Dream casually uncorked a vial, lazily tipped it over the fallen and writhing form of Quackity, and Technoblade watched the wound knit close, the blood stoppered up like the cork had been wedged back in. Quackity jolted up with a shuddering gasp, hands still clasped around his throat as he kicked away from the platform and nearly fell off the stage. 

Dream crouched down in front of Quackity, hand extended to poke at where the man kept his throat guarded from another attack. "Next time, if I ask you to jump, you ask how high. Understand?" 

Quackity nodded, eyes blown wide, and Technoblade could tell it was more out of desperate, animal fear than any kind of actual understanding here. Tubbo stood beside the small scene, jaw dropped in a small gape, and the crowd stood, similar slack-jawed expressions coloring their faces as well. Punz stepped through the frozen and statuesque bodies, weaving up to the platform, hopping up with an ease borne of confidence as he took his place beside Dream and surveyed the crowd. 

"Punz," Dream said. "Slaughter anyone that moves." 

"Yes, sir." 

Dream turned to face Tubbo, who had begun to creep backwards with his shoulders drawn up around his ears. "Tubbo, let him out." 

Technoblade wasn't even sure why Dream was going through all this effort to let him free. He wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth though. The clink of keys and nervous breathing betrayed Tubbo's approach, and the crunch and click of the lock disengaging was music to his ears. For the first time in almost a day, he stood on his own two feet. He rubbed at the back of his neck, stretched, and then waited, awkwardly glancing between Dream and a fidgeting Tubbo. 

"Uh," he started and realized he didn't know what to say. "Nice of you to, uh, drop by, Dream, and impeccable timing by the way. Though, personally, and this is just my opinion, I think you were a bit sloppy with the whole slitting throats thing. This was actually my only good shirt, man. I mean, it was blood free and everything." 

No one said anything in response and he wished anyone would as he flattened his lips and looked between the unmoving smile on Dream's mask and Tubbo's wide eyes. Dream finally approached, still wordless, and he took a reflexive step back, arms raising-- He had just seen Quackity slaughtered by him in one move, so he felt like he was warranted a bit of caution.

A fist twisted into the front of his shirt and he grabbed at Dream's wrist, going to pry it off, but the ringing shatter of glass, the vertigo, the stomach turning shift as the plane disappeared and reappeared under his hooves, sent him stumbling and falling to his knees in the grass. He dug his hands into the dirt, stared down at the lazy sway of weeds, and wondered how they had gotten here. 

The collar of his shirt dug into his throat as he was dragged up by it-- and he couldn't even escape manhandling when it was his savior, huh? Dream sure was stronger than he looked, all lanky and awkwardly long, yet he practically tossed him around like Technoblade wasn't inches taller and whole barrels thicker. 

He batted the hand away from him and turned to face Dream, the man's expression as unreadable and blank as always. "I'd appreciate if you'd not do that." 

Dream turned on his heel, waving him along. "Come on." 

Technoblade, for lack of other options, followed, only stumbling slightly as his legs still shook and his knees ached. "Uh, and where exactly are we going?" 

"You can't stay out here anymore." 

He frowned. "What are you talking about?" 

"Well…" Dream glanced at him from over his shoulder, the mask unnerving, the eye holes empty, like the festered sockets of a rot-bitten skull. "You're more useful to me alive and I can't have them trying to kill you all the time." 

"Yeah, alright, so then I'll just go back to my cabin, grab my stuff, and move further away from the circus then." 

"No," Dream chuckled, shaking his head. "That won't work."

Technoblade squinted at the tree-line, the swathes of pine needles and bark somehow familiar as they meandered through them. They were heading towards the beach. The falter in Dream's steps betrayed the use of a communicator as he raised his fist up and spoke into the ring on his finger. 

"I'll be back in a bit, Punz, just keep them there." 

Technoblade hummed. "What're you gonna do to them?" 

Dream shook out his wrist, fingers curling into a fist for a moment before falling slack at his side. "Explain how things are going to be from now on." 

"Uh… what does that entail?" 

"If they won't listen to me, if they-- if they won't stop fucking around and doing this kind of stuff behind my back, I'll make them understand why they should listen." 

Technoblade chuckled. "Man, you're a little bit of a god-king, you know that?" 

Dream stayed quiet, the way his shoulders hiked up the only indication he had heard him. 

"Tyrant kin." Technoblade drawled and watched Dream's hackles practically rise and the mask whip towards him. 

"I saved your life, you know." 

Technoblade held up his hands, chuckling thinly. "And I appreciate that, fully and totally, don't get me wrong, I just-- I don't really understand why or where you're taking me and I'd kinda like to be in the loop." 

"I--" Dream paused. "I have a place you can stay where they can't do this all over again." 

Technoblade blinked, frowning. "Is it your house?" 

"What? No, why would-- Why would it be my-- It's not my house." 

"Do you even have a house?" 

Dream said nothing and turned on his heel to continue their trek. 

"I'm starting to think you don't have a house." 

Dream paused, steps faltering. "I have a house, it's just not--" He shook his head. "Look, _whatever_ , that's not important."

The beach unfolded before them in swathes of sediment that reflected the first hints of the moon. Waves leapt and lapped at the shore in inky stains and he hated the water at night, you couldn't ever truly see what was beneath the surface. That didn't stop Dream from wading ankle deep and further, as if it was nothing. He didn't miss the massive structure that loomed against the black horizon either, somehow darker than the sky itself, the stars betraying how massive it was against the backdrop. The insidious glint of obsidian sent the creep of chills down his spine in a slow crawl. 

"Where are we going now?" Technoblade asked, hesitating at the edge, where the water pooled and chilled his hooves. 

Dream continued out. "There's a portal just off shore we have to get to." 

"Does the, uh-- does the portal have anything to do with that?" He asked, looking at the giant monolith of a building. 

"Something like that." 

He followed behind Dream, wading further into the water, until it was up to his waist and then his chest and then he had to tread the waves that threatened to crest over his head. Salt water stung his nostrils and coated his tongue and he spit and spluttered as he pulled himself onto the sandy shore of a small island. A hand grabbed his wrist, started dragging him to his feet, and he yanked out of the grip, lip curling. 

"Would you stop grabbing me for five seconds," he bit out.

Dream held up his hands, placatingly, as if to say _'my bad'_ , but the blank grinning stare of the mask didn't feel apologetic in the slightest. He managed to get his feet beneath him, only wobbling slightly, and he hesitated as Dream waited, standing on the lip of the nether portal, haloed by the purple glow behind him. It didn't feel-- Something felt off about all of it. But it didn't stop the way he stepped forward, up onto the obsidian, and through the translucent wavering amethyst. 

He blinked, stomach flipping and head spinning as he was coughed up into the hell-tinged planes of the nether. His nose itched and he sneezed at the tickle of smoke and charcoal that overwhelmed him. Squinting his eyes against the burning itch, he trailed after Dream. The way the heat seemed to warp Dream around the edges, the melting and the shifting and the tilted, off-kilter visage of the man didn't match up with the monster the shine of hell-fire kept trying to morph him into. And the next portal was a godsend that Technoblade all but threw himself through without a second thought. He took a deep breath of cool, clean air on the other side and ignored the way Dream snorted beside him, clearly amused. 

The obsidian under his hooves and the way it didn't end had him looking up, scanning the wall, and it was all black stone and scattered sources of light placed around. The occasional vein of marble, inked through with aimless patterns of ebony, broke up the expanse. It was mostly obsidian though. Nearly _unbreakable_ obsidian. And his limbs felt heavy, dragged down, like they had poured half of one of those vials down his throat again. His brow furrowed, head dipping as he looked over at Dream. 

"What--" He tried and his tongue fumbled over the words. 

Dream chuckled thinly. "Sorry, uh, this part is kind of enchanted to make it hard to mine out. I'd turn it off if I could, but it's sort of a permanent effect on the place." 

He didn't seem very sorry about it. A hand wrapped around the back of his neck, resting there, and he would have liked to buck it off, but it led him like a tether, pushing more than letting him walk himself anywhere. He tried to watch where they were headed, count the number of turns, the number of doors they passed through, map out how to get back to the portal and out of this place, but it was an impossible labyrinth that tangled up in his head and faded like smoke. 

"Is this a prison?" He managed, after the fifth instance of bars they passed. 

There was way too much of a pause before-- "It is." 

He stopped, brushed off the hand on his nape and took a step back."Are you-- Dream, are you putting me in _jail_?" 

Dream turned back to him, sidled close and put a hand on his shoulder that burned and itched, and he stared at the empty eyes and empty smile of his mask. "No, no, no-- This is just-- Uh, think of it like how you put a bird in a cage. You put it there to keep it safe and stuff, right? You don't want anything to like, try and eat it, and you don't want the bird to, I don't know, hurt itself by accident or whatever."

He tried to shrug off the hand, but it remained clamped and stuck. "Uh, you also don't want the bird to get away." 

Dream circled behind him, placing another hand on his other shoulder and pushing, more a light suggestion than any threat, but the intent was clear. "You're not a prisoner here, Techno." 

He obeyed the nudging, shrinking away from the fingers that settled over his shoulders-- and he really wished everyone would stop touching him for five whole seconds. The barred maw of a cell stood before them at the end of the hall, and it was well-lit compared to the others, actually furnished and fleshed out and not just stone and mortar, but that didn't take away the fact it was still a cage. 

He leveled Dream with a glare as the man opened the door. "I gotta admit, it doesn't really _feel_ like I'm not a prisoner." 

"It's just better off this way." Dream gestured him in and it was odd how he didn't really remember stepping inside. 

The moment between his foot lifting outside the cell and falling against the obsidian inside was lost to the fizz of static clogging his ears. He shook his head and it seemed to help dial back the fog, though not before he could slip back out as the door shut and a lock engaged with a resounding and throaty click. 

Technoblade hummed, clenching his jaw and stepping up to inspect the bars and Dream lingering behind them. "You know, I'm not one to judge, but there's quite literally so many other solutions to this problem that don't involve locking me up." 

"You're hard to keep tabs on and I like to know what's happening." Dream shrugged. "You know the, uhm-- The little saying about keeping your cards close to your chest?" 

"I am aware of it." He drawled, poking at one of the bars. "But I'm a person, a living breathing _person_ , Dream, not a card." 

"You're--" Dream paused, head tilted up as if to search for the right word. "You're useful. And I need you close at hand, just in case." 

He said it like he was just hanging up a weapon. Like he had finished cleaning the blood off his blade and was returning it to it's slot on the wall for the next time. 

"Alright, uh, so, you really don't see a problem with this then? Like no issue at all?" 

"I don't have a choice." 

"You do! You literally do though!" He butted the heel of his palm against the bars. "Dream, I swear to god-- If you leave me in here--" 

Dream refused to look at him, mask facing the empty hallway. "It won't be that bad. I'll make sure you're comfortable and I'll send people by to check on you. If you need or want anything just let them know and--" 

"I want to not be in a cage!" 

"I can't let you out." Dream shrugged and he wanted to sink his fist through that porcelain fucking mask and rip the hint of smugness out of his voice. 

"Just-- Look, man, just admit it's cause I stopped listening to you too and went into retirement. You didn't like that, right? You wanted me to just keep terrorizing them, doing your dirty work for you, huh?" 

"No." 

No he didn't like it? Or no that wasn't the reason for this? Dream let the 'no' sit like that was all the answer in the world. The first footstep sent him back up to the bars, hands curled around them. 

"Dream-- Dream, hey, come on, man, we can-- We can come to some kind of understanding here. There's gotta be something else besides this." 

Dream tilted his head. "Did you want to go back to them?" 

"What? No, why would I-- They'll kill me--" 

"I could let them." Dream sidled up close to the bars, mask peering between them like a cat's eye in the chewed entrance of a mouse's burrow. "I could hand deliver you back to Tubbo myself. Hell, I could even help them slit your throat, Techno. Over and over and over." 

He recoiled, eyes searching over the man in front of him, and all he saw was a coiled snake with bared teeth as Dream grabbed the bars and leaned so close he could hear him breathing and he thought the man might meld through them. A thrum, like the buzz of gnats or the low hum of a distant swarm of flies hummed and grew in his ears as Dream's mask stared and stared and-- 

"Is that what you want? You want me to let Quackity and Fundy turn you into a pig, walk you around by a leash until you forget what it's like to stand upright? Do you want Phil to watch them gut you, to tear you from navel to neck and pull out your intestines across the docks? Is that it?" Dream sneered, a derisive sound that curled hot and annoying over Technoblade's shoulders. "Do you want to die for your cause so bad that you'd rather be handed back over to them then sit here where you're safe?" 

Technoblade shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "First of all, that was all _weirdly_ specific, not gonna lie. And I don't know, man, I just know I'd rather be anywhere but here. I don't care if it's safe or whatever the heck you think this is." 

Dream raised his communicator ring up to his mask and the buzzing returned tenfold, crouching between his ears rather than beside them, and he couldn't tell if it was Dream's visage that was wavering or his vision. His stomach dropped as the edges of the green jacket melted and reformed like pellets of broken snow and glitching dye, the mask flickering in and out from negative to sepia and back. His heart kicked and bucked viciously against his sternum. And he couldn't tell where the fear came from exactly, the fear of death always tucked up animal and instinctual in the back of his head, but this felt like someone had reached in and turned the dial up so high it was all he could fathomably consider. 

"Actually, Tubbo, I may have a proposition for you--" 

"Wait, wait--" he chuckled. "I, uh, actually I changed my mind, it's-- it's fine, it's all good," he laughed thin and high, his skin aching just over his stomach, like the curved hook of a gutting knife had already wormed its way into him. "You don't have to call him, see--" He backed away from him, hands raised. "It's cool, we're cool." 

The fear clutching at his chest faded back to the usual dull undercurrent and the way the hum cut out and the image returned to normal along with it (like he had never watched it warp in the first place) made him think it all wasn't exactly natural. Dream tilted his head, hummed, fist still curled up under his chin and Technoblade glanced between the ring and the mask, his eyes pinched and brow furrowed.

"As long as we're _'cool'_." Dream air-quoted the last word. 

"We're ice cool, like absolutely, glacially cool, and any other kinds of cool there is. I'm totally fine with, uh--" He glanced around at the cell. "With the arrangement." 

"Good. Well, uhm...if that's all." Dream turned on his heel, waving a hand over his shoulder in a lazy parting. 

"Yeah, uh, alright, see--" He blinked and Dream was already gone. "See you later..." 

Technoblade waited for a bit, in case, for some reason, Dream came back and laughed this all off. Told him it was a joke and opened the cell door and they could both have a laugh or two at his own expense. No one returned, and one minute became five, until he had stood at the cell door, waiting, for half an hour. 

"Great...So, he's actually dead serious then." Technoblade sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

He looked around at the cell, at the spartan lay-out, the desk pushed next to the bed, the empty bookcase, the attempts at homeliness made with a rug thrown on the floor. A nightstand drawer revealed a handful of candles and a box of matches that he fished out and immediately set up around the little cell. Striking each one to life, he chased away the dark that creeped in from every corner. And Dream could have at least given him a window view rather than just obsidian and more obsidian. 

He perched on the edge of the bed and stared at the loose woven rug, the fabric a deep sandy red, nothing like blood, but he watched it morph into pools and spilling patterns across the stone. Burying his face in his hands, he groaned. 

"You've really fucked this one now haven't you, big man?" 

"Oh, perfect, just what I needed, you're here too." He muttered, refusing to look up and see Not-Tommy. 

"Eh, sorry to disappoint. You're the one who keeps fucking bringing me back though." 

"I literally did not ask for you to come back at all. That is the complete opposite of anything I ever asked for." 

"Well, I'm here now and shit, aren't I?" 

He sighed, scrubbing at his face and eyes, slapping his cheeks lightly as if that might wake him up and jolt him out of the waking nightmare. No such luck apparently, as he looked up to see Not-Tommy perched on the desk, legs swinging back and forth, head tilted. 

"Do you really have to be here to torment me? Is that what's going to happen here? I've had a, uh-- Well, I'd say a pretty rough twenty-four hours, you know, and I'd _really_ like some peace and quiet." 

Not-Tommy shrugged. "It's your head." 

He tried to will him to leave, scrunched his brows and clenched his jaw, and really focused on making the hallucination vanish. 

"You look like you're gonna shit!" Not-Tommy laughed. 

"I--" He got up to pace around the room. "I shouldn't have to deal with this."

"I think you're just bad at this, dickhead." 

He picked up the nearest object, conveniently the box of matches, and chucked it at Not-Tommy's head. It scattered against the wall behind him, the matches bursting out from the box in a cascade of clattering sticks. Not-Tommy laughed and laughed and Technoblade had never wanted to kill anything more in his life. 

"Oh, big man's, mad, eh? Gonna try to kill me? Would that make it all better? Strangling your little brother to death?" 

And he wished he could wrap his hands around that smug little neck and squeeze, if it meant he would shut up for five seconds, just a few seconds-- If it meant peace and quiet, he would snap his windpipe like a twig. The voices wailed and rallied behind the way his blood sang, his back hunched and shoulders pulled up as he stalked close and loomed over him. He must have looked feral as he stared down Not-Tommy and gnashed his tusks, a silent threat as his hands curled into fists. 

"Big fucking pig, that's all you are, you know? Just some fucking farm animal that they keep locking up and shit!" Not-Tommy barked with another cawing laugh. 

_'Weak, useless, weak, useless, weak, useless, weak, usele--'_

"Even you know it's true, yeah? Don't pretend like you're above all of us somehow. You're a fucking traitor, you're a fucking murderer, you're a shit brother and a shittier fucking friend." 

Tommy, the real one, the actual Tommy wouldn't say any of that, maybe the traitor bit admittedly, and hearing it all from him-- It stung. It punched into his ribs like the blows of steel-capped boots and he wanted it all to shut up. He wrenched the chair out from the desk before he even thought about stopping out and swung it at the wide-eyed hallucination. It shattered against the stone, splintering into his palms and sticking against his cheeks. Blood trickled down his brow, pooling over his eye-lid and his vision filmed red on one side. Swiping it away with the back of his hand, he blinked it out, eye stinging.

He breathed heavily, the remnants of the chair clutched in his grasp, and Not-Tommy vanished into thin air. It was just him and an empty room. And all he could think about was that last fearful look as the Tommy who wasn't Tommy, who _wasn't_ his little brother, had stared up at him, unbruised skin turned purpled, bandages wrapped around his limbs, eyes watery and lip split, and it hadn't been him, he hadn't been here, but all he thought about was how dull his eyes had looked, empty and gray. How he had looked _terrified_.

Throwing the ruined chair aside he paced around the room, huffing and shaking his head, trying to dislodge everything from his thoughts in quick jerking motions that matched the way he wrinkled his snout and bared his teeth. He must have looked unhinged from an outside perspective, but he didn't really care. 

His little brother-- _No, it hadn't been him-- It hadn't--_ Tommy had looked up at him like he was a _monster._

There was the clang of metal against the bars and he startled, jerking his head towards them and squinting. 

"Got some food and drink for ya. Sorry, it's nothing super special, just some bread and soup from Niki." 

And that was Puffy, the colorful sheep lingering awkwardly outside the cell door, a wrapped bundle in her hooves. He trudged from the candle-tainted dark towards her, and he didn't miss the way she winced at the sight of him, her eyes trailing over his face, his hands, and the side of his jaw. 

"Shit...Hey man, if you, uh-- If you needed something for your hooves I could bring something later." 

"Uh, yeah… that'd be good thanks." He really tried his best not to be awkward, but him and people he didn't talk to much mixed like oil and water. 

"Sorry you're, uh, in here by the way." She muttered. "Dream's… he's a bit set in his ways once he's thought of something, you know?" 

"I've noticed." 

She shifted her weight, hands fidgeting over the fabric bundle in her hands. 

"Would you let me out if I asked?" He tried. 

Puffy grimaced, avoiding his eyes. "Naw..." 

He huffed out a laugh. "Figured." 

She was loyal afterall, an admirable, if annoying, trait in this instance. 

"Well, in that case--" He gestured to the empty bookcase. "You think you could, uh, bring some books or something. This place is admittedly a bit… _light_ on reading material and I'd rather not lose it more than I already have." 

"Oh, yeah, shit, of course dude." She nodded, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. "You want anything in particular? Like just a mixed bag or you got a favorite genre or something?" 

"Honestly, anything with words is better than nothing." 

"Awesome, got it. I'll-- I'll be back in a bit." She moved to leave, before seeming to remember what she was holding, and she slotted it through the largest opening in the bars. "Oh, yeah, here-- Sorry if it's a bit cold." 

He grabbed it, the floral pattern on the fabric kitschy and quaint considering the backdrop it had found itself in. Puffy was gone by the time he looked back up. Sighing, he dropped the food on the desk and ignored it for now. 

"You're not gonna fucking eat?" 

"God--" Technoblade kneaded at his temples. "Honestly how many people did I wrong in my past life to deserve this?" 

"Come on, bruv. I'm not that fucking bad." 

Technoblade looked over to see Not-Tommy, cross-legged on the bed, fingers tapping idly on his knees as he watched him. 

"You're very annoying. I hope you know that." 

"I'm in _your_ head, remember? So maybe it's you that's fucking annoying, dick." 

He didn't answer him, didn't even reply. Maybe if he ignored it, it would just go away. Turning to the food he undid the knot in the fabric, looked over the neatly packed meal in a little wooden box. There was actually a spoon and a covered bowl and while the bread and soup was becoming chilled, it smelled better than anything he could have made himself. At least they didn't expect him to eat like an animal in here. It was a small courtesy among a surmounting number of disservices. 

"Bitch." 

He grit his teeth, ignoring Not-Tommy in favor of picking up the box and utensil and finding a nice corner to tuck himself into, considering he had quite literally ruined the only chair in the place and the bed was currently occupied. 

"Hey, bitch." 

Technoblade screwed his eyes shut, hands clenched so hard around his meal he thought he might crush it between his palms. 

"Bitch!" 

"What, jesus-- Tommy, I am trying to eat!" 

"I know, I know, but hey do you think Dream put you in here for a fucking reason?" 

His brow furrowed. "I-- I mean if you're in my head you literally heard him explain himself." 

"Yeah, but do you really believe that shit?" 

"I don't-- Look, man, can I just eat this and not think about that for a second?" 

"I'm fucking bored though." 

He nearly threw the spoon at him. "How-- How the heck can you even get bored?" 

"I dunno." 

" _Please_ , go torment someone else then, I don't know, I'm not your free entertainment. There's literally a whole circus of people you could choose to bother outside of these walls you kn--" 

Someone cleared their throat and Technoblade froze. 

"Sorry to, uh, interrupt your… conversation, but I got the books and potion for ya." 

Setting his food aside he stood, pretended that she hadn't caught him talking to nothing, and snatched up the lumpy burlap sack she shoved through the bars. 

"Thanks..." 

"Anything else?" She asked, stance as soldiered and ready for orders as ever.

"You _could_ let me out." 

"Sorry." Puffy smiled. "No can do, pal." 

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well, uh, honestly that's all I got then." 

"Cool, then I'll, uh-- I'll probably see you later." 

Technoblade waved, a small awkward little parting that Puffy returned before she turned and disappeared from view. 

Not-Tommy laughed raucous and loud the moment she was gone. "She fucking thinks you're absolutely fucked in the head, big man! Like proper bloody unhinged! She saw you talking to yourself and shit and she's probably going to tell Dream you're fucking losing it." 

"Great," he dead-panned. "That's perfect, honestly. Maybe that'll make him realize I shouldn't be in here." 

"Or maybe he'll realize this is where you belong." 

He really didn't like it when Not-Tommy didn't curse, when his voice dipped and fell and became serious, it all felt wrong leaving him. 

Instead of instigating him with a reply, he toppled the contents of the burlap sack out onto the cell floor. The clink and clatter of glass betrayed the potion as it rolled free and nearly slotted itself under the bed. He ignored it for now, instead settling down cross-legged on the floor to muse over the collection of books toppled over one another like dominoes. 

Some were older, the covers worn and peeling, spines cracked and well-loved. Others were brand new, untouched, the gilded titles and pristine ink standing out amongst the others. He plucked free a well-worn one, the cover a garish yellow, the illustrations across the front done in an older, more medieval style and the title emblazoned above in tight calligraphy read; _'Greek Myths and Lore'_. 

He snorted. Looking over the others revealed a similar pattern and he wondered if his Theseus speech had any influence on what books Puffy grabbed. The Iliad, Work and Days, collections of poems and plays by Greek philosophers and playwrights. He started to question if Puffy had an interest in this stuff herself or if this was a joke by Dream from when the sheep had passed along his request. 

Picking up the myths and lore one he thumbed through the pages, skimming it quickly, the illustrations attempting to animate themselves as the pages fell in rapid succession. 

"Wait, wait-- Shit, go back to that page." A hand reached over his shoulder and pointed, and he realized Not-Tommy had decided to stand behind him to observe the book stash as well. 

He flipped the pages again, passed over the tales of fallen heroes and mortals and gods so swallowed by hubris they were blinded by it. "What, why--" 

A small piece of parchment had tucked itself snug against the spine, flush with the pages and easy to miss when the book was closed. He looked down at the myth it was book-marking. The depiction of a kneeled woman with her hands clenched around an upturned box lid as winged, fanged, horned, and any number of grotesquely shaped beasts flooded out from it, glared back at him.

"Pandora's box, huh?" Not-Tommy said and it perfectly mirrored his own inner dialogue in an unsettling echo. 

He plucked the impromptu bookmark out, flipped the parchment over, and a small cartoon smiley face grinned back. 

"I really do hate that man's stupid sense of humor." Technoblade sighed, crumpling the note up in his palm and tossing it as far as he could outside the bars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is kinda short. 
> 
> Also Dream looks human in this but he's uhhhhhhhh definitely not.
> 
> I really love Puffy lmao and wanted to find a way to include her but don't know if I did her justice. 😔


	6. Upturned Candle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greek mythology has rotted mine and Techno's skulls.   
> Credit to the Iliad for donating lines of dialogue for me to use.😔✌️  
> Could have tacked this on to yesterday's chapter but here we are.

With the meal Puffy had left him finally finished, the potion downed, his hooves and face no longer aching, the raw lines around his wrists and ankles vanished, and the lingering nausea finally gone, he returned to the stack of novels. He gathered up the stash, deposited some on the shelves, and brought the rest to the desk beside the bed. Kicking Not-Tommy off of it was quite the affair, more so than it should have been for something that wasn't even real, but now Not-Tommy was relegated to the floor, a book opened in front of his crossed legs. 

Plucking up a book at random, Technoblade settled back against the headboard, figuring that, with little else to do, he might as well read. Admittedly, it was a bit difficult to see the words without his reading glasses, though nothing holding the book an awkward amount of space away from himself couldn't fix.

"Hey, did you know that some chick fucked a swan and then had babies from it?"

Technoblade glanced away from the opened pages of the _Iliad_ to see Not-Tommy plucking over one of the other books. He still hadn't quite worked out if Not-Tommy could actually interact with the world or if he was just imagining him doing that. 

"Uh, you mean Leda and Zeus _disguised_ as a swan, right?" 

"Yeah, whatever the fuck. This shit is so fucking weird. How do you even fuck a swan?" 

"I imagine it's similar to how Wilbur somehow had a fully grown kid with a salmon." 

Not-Tommy snorted. 

"Hey, if you like that one, read this." He reached for a book on the desk, flipped through it and tossed it onto the floor, the page opened to the tale of Ixion. 

There were a few moments of silence until-- "He fucked a cloud?!" 

"Yeah." Technoblade settled back against the headboard. "Well, technically it was a woman-shaped cloud, or like a cloud made into a woman, specifically Hera, but, uh, you know." He shrugged. 

"Imagine fucking a cloud!" Not-Tommy laughed and it screeched against his ears like the scrape of a metal door. 

"I'd rather not." 

"So you wouldn't fuck a woman made of clouds?" 

"No." 

"Do you even fuck at all?" 

He sighed. "Do you ever shut up?" 

"I'm just fucking curious, man." 

"You're literally me! You already know all of the answers to these questions." 

"Jesus man, you don't have to be such a fucking buzzkill." 

"Maybe if you weren't so annoying." 

"This feels like the fucking pot calling the kettle black." 

"How so?" He grumbled, trying to focus on the book in his hands and not on Not-Tommy.

"Because, you made me." 

"I didn't make y--" He glanced over to Not-Tommy and he was gone. "What? Where the heck did you go?" 

He looked around, dropping the book on the bed and pacing around the interior, even going so far as to check under the bed. Not-Tommy was just gone, vanished like smoke. It should have been a relief, it really should have, but he couldn't help but contemplate the way the walls seemed to press in closer, the shadows stretching longer, and the candle-light turned less homely and more insidious. 

Returning to the pages of the epic didn't get rid of the unease. The voices chittered and crawled like insects from the dark, eating up the silence, clambering over one another to be listened to. It was the same thing, over and over. That he should bloody himself against the bars until they gave under him or he fell first. That he should call for Dream to come face to face with him, lure him close enough to the bars he could reach through, snag him by the neck and snap his spine before he had a chance to escape. It was every manner of twisting, blood-tinged thought and call for violence he was all too used to. 

And while he buried them under the words of the poem in his hands, he couldn't ignore the flickers of shadows that stood around the bed, forcing him to glance up every so often to make sure they weren't indeed there to kill him. 

"Technoblade?" 

He blinked, brows scrunching. The voice was tentative, scratchy in the middle, like the person wanted to stop saying it half way through. 

"Uh… hello?" He asked, unsure if Not-Tommy was going to have another friend join his little party of manifested people. 

"Sorry for bothering you, I just--" 

He realized they were standing beyond the bars and not within them. Squinting out at the hall, there was the familiar dual-toned, split down the middle, visage of a rather tall ender-fellow. Technoblade frowned. He hadn't exactly forgotten how he had helped land him in here. 

Abandoning the book and moving closer to the bars, he narrowed his eyes."What do you want, Ranboo?" 

"Uh," Ranboo glanced away and then back. "Just, checking in." 

"Consider everything 'checked in' then. You can leave now." Technoblade said, heading further back into his cell. 

"Wait--"

Technoblade stopped mid-step, peering over his shoulder. 

"I-- Uh, I actually wanted to apologise for… For all of that." 

Technoblade turned around and headed for the bars, gesturing out towards the hall beyond his cage. "Why apologize now? You could have just not done it at all." 

"I know, I know, but I don't--" Ranboo laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I don't do well with peer pressure and Quackity and Tubbo and the others-- They just kept including me in the talks and asking me to help and-- I don't know. At the time it seemed logical somehow." 

"Well, does it seem logical now?" 

"No, not really." 

Ranboo fidgeted, rocking his weight from one foot to the other and limbs hugging around his middle as he glanced anywhere but Technoblade's eyes. There was a bruise on the white side of his face, tucked up under his jaw, and the hint of blood splattered on the rim of the sleeve that poked out from his suit jacket. 

"What did Dream do out there anyway?" 

"Well, he--" Ranboo wrings his hands and twines his fingers and then untwines them. "He told us things were going to change for L'Manberg." 

"How?" 

"There's these walls now and none of us have weapons anymore. If we, uh-- if we ever wear armor inside he said he'll have Punz, or Puffy, or one of the others ' _butcher us'_." Ranboo made air quotes. "His words, not mine" 

"So...he's got you all penned in then, huh?" 

"Yeah. Like-- Like sheep or something." 

"Well, you like following other people around, don't you? It shouldn't be too hard of a transition for you then, being a sheep and all." And maybe he's more scathing than he should be, but whatever. This kid had helped get him into this situation. 

"I--" Ranboo shook his head. "I don't want this-- I didn't want this for them though. I just wanted to help whoever needed it. I just wanted to help people, but now it's all-- It's all so messed up and I don't know how to fix it." 

"Mm, you probably can't fix it." Technoblade drawled. 

Ranboo shook his head, hands wringing faster, and shoulders hiking up. "But there has to be something. There has to be." 

"Eh, maybe there was once, but I can't exactly do much from in here." 

Ranboo glanced back over his shoulder, frame tensed. "I could-- I could try and get you out." 

Technoblade chuckled. "Good luck with that." 

Ranboo looked at him and it was the first time there's eyes had met this whole time. "What? You don't think I could?" 

"Look, I'll be honest, if Dream got Sam to help him build this place it's basically inescapable, unless he really wants someone to get out." 

"Could Phil get you out?" 

Technoblade laughed. "Phil's a force to be reckoned with sure, but he's not a god." 

"I don't know what to do." Ranboo muttered, hands carding through his hair, voice shaky. "I don't-- I don't know what I should do. I don't know what to do-- I don't know--" 

"Hey, hey, okay, listen-- _Please_ don't freak out in front of my cell." 

"How do I fix it though? How do I fix it? How do I fix it? How do I fix this--" 

"Hey!" He kicked his hoof against the bars to get Ranboo's attention. "Ranboo, c'mon, man-- Look at me." 

Ranboo glanced at him, his eyes filmy, unfocused and wide and Technoblade couldn't find a pupil in the red or the green. 

"You're fine, okay? It's good. You gotta calm down." 

"Okay," Ranboo breathed. "Okay… I'm-- I'm okay..." 

Technoblade let him go through his little self talk, glad that they had at least averted him full on having some kind of attack in front of him. It was always… _awkward_ when people cried or broke down in front of him, and he appreciated any moment he managed to avoid it. 

"You good?"

"Yeah… Yeah, sorry." 

"It's, uh-- It's fine." He waved him off. "And, listen, there's… There's not much that can be done right now, alright. But, if you go to Phil, gather some of the others, you can start making a plan maybe. Organization is the first step towards revolution and all that." 

Ranboo nodded, knuckles rubbing at his cheek. 

"Uh, also if you could maybe tell Phil not to worry about me by the way, that'd be great." He paused. "Oh, and tell him to go and take care of the turtles if he gets a chance to." 

"I…" Ranboo huffed out a breath. "I can do that, yeah." 

"Great." 

There was a moment of awkward silence where they both just stared at each other. 

"Uh..."

"Yeah, I'll admit, ending conversations has never been my strong suit." He admitted. 

"I can relate." Ranboo laughed weakly. 

"Uh, okay, well--" he paused."Bye, I guess?" 

Ranboo raised his hand. "Bye, Technoblade... I'll-- I'll try to come back, if Dream will let me." 

Technoblade wrinkled his snout at the mention of the man of the hour, listened to the clicking retreat of dress shoes against the obsidian, and then was stuck back in nothing but silence. 

"Great…" He muttered. "Finally peace and quiet." 

The words dried up and shriveled in the empty air. If Not-Tommy was here, at least he would have something to focus on. And he really hated having to admit that. 

With nothing but the voices beginning to grow loud again, he picked the book back up and tried to escape into the pages of it. 

The epic of Patroclus and Achilles unfolded under his hands in the painted words of the Greeks themselves. A tale of the anger of a man born to be a god, but too close to mortals to shrug off his humanity. Of how Patroclus and Achilles were closer than anyone could fathom, fates as entwined as they were short. And Troy would have never truly fallen had Patroclus never donned the armor and died in Achilles image. It was a tragedy as classic as any of the others, but he always found himself drawn back to it. 

Maybe for the bestial way Achilles' anger manifested throughout the epic, or the way he had momentarily tried to shed it, only to return to it when the ones he loved got hurt or taken from him. 

"You should read it out loud." 

"Why?" So _now_ Not-Tommy decided to return. 

"I don't fucking know. Isn't that what poems were meant for back then?" 

"And what audience am I reading this to? The peanut gallery?" 

"Me, dipshit." 

"So, to myself then." 

Not-Tommy shrugged. 

"Fine, whatever." He thumbed through the book until he found the opening he wanted. 

"Uh, this is dumb…" He huffed out a breath, and started reading. _"'Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.'_ " He felt stupid, his face warm as he read the page out loud. _"'Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.'"_

"You're so fucking monotone! Give it some conviction, big man! It's a fucking epic, not a god damn essay!" 

"I don't need your critique."

"Read another line then, c'mon, bitch." 

He grumbled, but thumbed through, skimming through familiar lines until he found another one that was worth even reading to himself. 

" _'Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us. Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on.'"_

"See, that was _way_ fucking better! I think I actually felt the conviction in that one." 

Technoblade rolled his eyes. He continued reading, starting from the beginning, even if he knew the story, and for a moment he forgot that Tommy wasn't actually here, that the person that sat in rapt attention to every word he said, wasn't actually there. For a moment he wasn't alone and stuck in a cage. Instead, it was a warm hearth, a cabin tucked into the snow, Phil rummaging in the kitchen space, and Tommy cross-legged on the floor as he listened to Technoblade read him a tale. 

It ended eventually, when he noticed Not-Tommy had faded again. The words didn't feel the same on his tongue and he dropped the book, let it slide and thunk against the stone with the slithering hiss of fluttering parchment. He looked at the ceiling, the flicker of candle-light dancing over the obsidian, turning every nook and cranny into lazy blinking eyes or the push of fingers from between the stone. Closing his eyes, a line drifted away with him, rocking with the lazy roll of a distant stretch of water and the gentle, swaying fall of snow...

_'The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us.'_

\--

Technoblade woke up to the dark. The candles having burnt out some odd hours ago, and the time impossible to tell with all the lack of sun visible from his prison. And while Dream claimed it was a room, just a place to stay until he was needed, it wasn't like he could roam freely from it. Worse than the privileges of even a pet, who could at least beg enough for the door to be cracked open.

Instead, he was stuck with his own thoughts, a shelf's worth of books, and all the time in the world. He wondered, briefly, if he could at least request a communicator ring. Considering Fundy had taken his and he had no way of wresting it back, he would have to nicely ask for one. The thought of nicely asking for anything from Dream curled his lip. 

He idly poked around the cell for a bit, trying to see if there were any integrity issues in the walls or the bars. Nothing revealed itself, besides another little meal left outside. This time it was wrapped in a plain white cloth, a small piece of parchment tacked onto it, the same little smiley face on it again. He held the edge of it to a new candle's flame and watched it burn, the grin melting and shriveling into nothing. 

The thought to leave the food abandoned outside the cell as a proverbial middle finger to Dream crossed his mind. The thought of starving also did too. One of those bothered him more than the other, and he gave in. It was just a plain baked jacket potato and a cluster of roasted beef, still somehow warm, like it hadn't been left long before he had woken up. The thought of Dream standing at the bars while he slept a rather unsettling one. 

The sound of footsteps disturbed the quiet just as he finished the last bite of his meal. Crumpling up the cloth it had been wrapped in, he tossed it outside the cell. 

"You probably want this back, righ--" He blinked, realizing it wasn't Dream who had come to visit him, but Ranboo again. 

The half-enderman glanced down at the piece of fabric and frowned. "Uh… What?" 

"Don't worry about it." He said, waving him off. "What, uh, brings you here again so soon?" 

Ranboo reached into his jacket and pulled free a leather moleskin. The corners worn down and showing the grain, a strap around the front covers holding notes and other small mementos in place. He opened it, eyes roving over the page. 

"So, a lot of stuff happened yesterday and today. I wrote most of it down…" Ranboo glanced at him and then back down at the book. "Uh, Dream blew up some parts of L'Manberg, including the docks, after Fundy and Quackity teamed up to try and take down the walls. Dream managed to catch Fundy, but Quackity got into the sewers and no one has been able to get into contact with him since. Uh, Phil and I are coming up with a plan for--" Ranboo stopped reading and briefly glanced over his shoulder. "The Thing. And I'll admit, the planning hasn't gone very well. In some good news though, Phil's house arrest ended. Tubbo didn't really see a point in it after Dream blew up half of his house." 

"He what?" Technoblade gritted out. 

"When he was laying down TNT I guess he, uh, got it too close to Phil's house when he planted it on the docks. It didn't end that well. Some of my own stuff got shrapnel ripped through it, but no, yeah-- It was pretty bad on his end."

"Is he back at the cabin then?" 

"Yeah, for now. And--" Ranboo glanced behind himself again. Instead of saying anything he flipped the book around so Technoblade could see the page. 

_'Tommy has moved in with Phil in Technoblade's cabin.'_

"That little-- Why does he have to--" 

Ranboo made a quick slicing motion over his own throat and Technoblade caught himself before he stumbled over his words. 

"But my house? Really?" He hissed, quieter and close to the bars. "Was nowhere else good enough? He got me into this mess and he thinks he can just shack up and use all my items like that." 

Ranboo grimaced, his sloping ears flicking down. "I don't think he has anywhere else to go." 

"Wasn't he all buddy buddy with Dream on the beach?" 

"Uh… I mean, that whole arrangement wasn't exactly-- Me and Tommy had a correspondence going the whole time and I don't think it was exactly the best place for him to be. I told him he couldn't trust Dream, but he really did think Dream was his friend. I can't really tell if a part of him still does." 

"That's two for two on thinking Dream was at least maybe a friend--" Technoblade paused, snout wrinkling. "Naw, friend is a strong word. An acquaintance, at least." 

"Yeah…" 

"Is that all that's happened then?" 

"Pretty much. Uh…" Ranboo skimmed over his journal, flipping pages for a moment and then going back to the last one he had written on. "Oh, I forgot, sorry. There's a few others that he's locked up too..." Ranboo frowned. "I didn't write down the names. That's my bad-- I-- I'll try and make sure I do that next time." 

"Do you, uh-- Do you forget a lot if it's not written down?"

"Oh, right--" Ranboo chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I have a few issues with my-- I guess my memory. Certain things stick, others don't. It's hard to tell what will or won't, so I have this to help me keep track of all of it." 

"You're like the guy from Memento." 

"Who?" 

"Nevermind." Technoblade sighed. "So, if like-- Quick scenario here, but let's say someone, I don't know-- Took the book, rewrote some of the things inside, and handed it back to you. Would you even notice?" 

Ranboo frowned, fingers clutched around his journal like he expected Technoblade to snatch it from him right then and there. "I never really-- I mean I never really considered that. I keep it in my chest and not many people know about it. I even put _'Do Not Read'_ on it, just in case." 

Technoblade snorted. "I'm sure that will _definitely_ stop these people from reading it if they find it." 

"I--" Ranboo stuttered. "Do you think I should hide it somewhere better? Do you think someone would take it and use it against me? Do you think someone would do that? Where can I hide it, if not in the chest-- I don't know where it would be safe. I thought it might be safe there, but someone might take it and I don't--" 

"Hey, hey, breath, kid. It's just a hypothetical. Just-- Be cautious I guess, but no need to be paranoid about it." 

"Okay." Ranboo breathed in and out. "Okay, yeah, I'll… I'll try to be more careful." 

"Yup. Uh… Well, thanks for keeping me in the loop and good luck out there, I guess." He paused. "Tell Phil I said hi." 

"Can do." Ranboo hesitated for a moment. "And thanks for, uh, letting me talk to you."

"Not like I have much of a choice." 

Ranboo stiffened. 

"I'm joking." 

Ranboo let out his held breath. "Oh, okay, god-- For a second I thought--" 

"You're good, you're good. See you next time, alright?" 

Ranboo waved as he left, journal clutched tight to his chest. Technoblade grimaced. He _really_ hoped that that thing didn't fall into the wrong hands. 

He turned over their conversation in his head. Picked over what he had learned. And if Dream was slowly rounding up the whole SMP, locking them all back up in Pandora's box until the chaos-- the chaos that he pointedly had a hand in instigating around every corner-- was contained, then when did he stop? Was it until every single person that ever questioned him ended up in here? 

The whole myth was predicated around the idea that the box didn't contain only the bad, it contained the good too. Hope the only thing left at the bottom when the lid shut too early. But Dream was attempting to reverse the situation, and had locked him up first, given him the best room in the house, made sure he was as comfortable as one could be in a prison. 

And he had to wonder, if to Dream, he was hope left at the bottom...or if he was something else entirely.

\---

Not-Tommy didn't return for a whole day. Or at least, maybe it was a day. It was hard to tell. He went more off of when he began to feel tired, eyelids dragged down by the promise of sleep and limbs sluggish, than actual time.

And his hours became mostly occupied with reading, and re-reading, until he got tired of reading the same things over and over. Until, he turned to scratching at the desk with a sharp chip of obsidian he had found, scrawling into the wood surface with rudimentary marks that turned into nonsensical imagery and shattered landscapes. He abandoned that after only an hour or two. Turned to pacing at the bars of his cell and waiting for anyone to pass by, for Ranboo to come back, for Phil to visit him-- Hell, he would have even welcomed Dream. 

Instead, nothing. And more nothing. Then, the nothing turned into trying to sleep and that didn't go so well. His dreams plagued by nightmares of him stuck in this cell, no lights, no food, no water, and just the voices. In others, Phil visited him, stood beyond the bars and looked down on him, like he knew he was always meant to be here. Caged and kept behind bars so he couldn't hurt anyone. 

He woke up after a restless sleep filled with imagery of blood and guts slipping between his hooves and iron on his tongue, to more nothing. More waiting. To no Not-Tommy. To the dark and him lighting candles to desperately stave it off, even as the wax ran low and the wicks burned out and the match box emptied. 

By what had to be the third or fourth day, when not even Not-Tommy had returned yet, he was sure he had been left to rot here. And besides the occasional bundle of food dropped beyond the bars with not a soul in sight to have left it, there had been no other indication of a living being within the halls. 

Footsteps finally echoed down the obsidian tunnel and he scrambled up, far too eager to see who had come to grace the outside of his cell. He tried to not look too desperate as he lingered by the bars and pretended to be in the midst of walking away from them. He didn't expect to see a crown, the reflective glint of sunglasses, and a three-striped cape out of the corner of his eye though. 

"Eret?" He asked, brow furrowing. 

Eret stopped, tilting their head towards him, and it was all the indication he needed to know they weren't here to see him. 

"Uh, are you-- Are you on your way to see someone?" 

"I was actually going to talk to Niki." 

"Cool, cool, I mean--" Technoblade laughed, trying to play off the fact that this was the first contact he had had with an actual person in days. "Wait, why is she even locked up?"

"She defended Fundy apparently, when he got caught with Quackity trying to tear down the walls." 

He hissed under his breath. "That sucks." 

"I was hoping to figure out if there was a way to get her out." 

"Wait, uh, don't you have Dream's ear? I mean, he made you King of the whole SMP for a reason, right? Or is George still King? Honestly, I forget how that all went down after I killed him like twice. But, hey, if you're King again, doesn't that mean you have some kind of power here?" And maybe he's rambling, but he hasn't spoken in a while, and he needed to keep Eret here, because they were real and not smoke and shadow and tangled up in the corners of his vision. 

Eret looked down, lips thinning. "He doesn't exactly follow me. It's--" Eret chuckled. "It's more the other way around." 

"Oh, so it's like a puppet thing. _Interesting_. I'm really not surprised, honestly. I don't think he would let anyone else beside himself actually be King, considering--" Technoblade gestured vaguely to the whole prison around them. "So what, you're like his little government lap dog or something? The entertainment? The shiny trophy up on the shelf for him to occasionally pull down and look at?" 

Eret grimaced. "Something like that." 

"Uh, well-- Man to person, real quick. Why even wear the crown if it's all empty?" 

"I--" Eret reached up towards it. "I don't really know. It's just familiar." 

"Kinda feels more like it's a reminder for you." Technoblade drawled, tapping his own. "You'll always remember who holds the leash when you wear it." 

Eret opened their mouth, maybe to say something more, counter his point-- Whatever it would have been, it didn't really matter as Dream nearly melded out of the dark, torchlight glinting off his mask. A hand fell on Eret's shoulder and Technoblade watched them tense, face turned pale. He couldn't help but consider the story of Briseis, of Clytemnestra, of Iphigenia as the two marched by his cell. Dream tilted his mask towards him, the eyes empty and dead as always. 

They passed out of view and he tried to press his snout to the bars, peer out past them and track their movements. All he could see was obsidian and hear the fading footfalls disappear further into the labyrinth. He rested his forehead against the bars, the rough, wrought steel digging it's teeth into his skin.

It was the first time he had seen Dream again since being left here. The man hadn't even said a word to him. The blind, white-hot urge to bash his fist through whatever teeth Dream had was overwhelming. 

A quote drifted to the forefront of his thoughts, louder than the clambering chorus of the voices yelling for him to rip the door from its hinges and stalk down the hall until he found Dream and ripped every limb from his sockets. It twisted and seeped over his tongue, clenched behind his teeth until all he could do was speak it into the dark as the voices wailed louder and louder in the quiet. 

"' _There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through._ '" He grabbed the bars of his cage, imagined for a moment he had wrapped his hands around Dream's neck, and flexed them around the metal. The rest of the quote slipped from him like blood and sand. " _'Therefore, there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall_.'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Techno reading greek myths all day and slowly losing it like: 👁️👄👁️📖


	7. Soldier's Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh,,,,, big thanks for all the kudos and comments, I didn't really ever expect anyone to read this or continue reading this ajshshdhdhdh now I have to pretend like I know how to write and shit. 
> 
> Techno still can't catch a break in this one. Even being in the prison he still gotta deal with the clownery. 
> 
> **Content Warnings:**   
> Mild anxiety attack with semi-graphic hallucinations.  
> Graphic depictions of violence and injury.  
> Someone gets choked a bit.

It was the next day, or more aptly, it was _maybe_ the next day. It didn't really matter. Whatever time it was, he had woken up and wandered around aimlessly. Trying to find something to entertain himself with that wasn't counting the blocks in the wall or chipping at the ground with his hooves and tossing the tiny bits of obsidian against the bars. 

No such luck greeted him and, desperate enough to even ruin a piece of literature, he ended up tearing pages out of the books. Settled back on the bed, the papers spread out before his crossed legs, he hunched over and plucked one up. Folded them all into shapes, into cranes, and boats, and shoddy stars, and something that was supposed to be a dog, but ended up as a crumpled up ball instead. 

A small paper sailor's hat came into being just as footsteps betrayed the approach of someone down the hall. Glancing up, he saw it was Puffy, the sheep decked in netherite, sword buckled at her hip and trident slung across her back. She stopped in front of the bars, seemed to hesitate, glanced over her shoulder briefly, and then sighed. 

"Have you ever, uh, questioned your loyalty to something?" 

Technoblade dropped the little paper hat on the bed beside him. "I'm really starting to think that Dream put me in this cell to be you people's free therapist." 

She raised her hands. "Hey, man, I can leave if you want me to." 

"No, no, no--" He laughed, standing up a bit too fast, as and approaching the bars. "It's all good. I just love listening to every single one of your guys' problems. It's the absolute highlight of my day." He deadpanned, even if his heart had stuttered at the thought of being left alone again. 

Puffy rolled her eyes. "Anyways, I have this-- Uh, issue with something that someone did. Like, someone I'd like to think I would follow into death and all that, but I don't know anymore…" 

"Let me guess, this person's name starts with Dree and ends with Eam."

"Bingo bango."

He mouthed the words she said and then shook his head. "Alright, so, what's the issue?" 

Puffy crossed her arms. "He locked up Niki for something she didn't even do." 

Technoblade sighed. "I mean, do you have proof she didn't do it?" 

"No." 

"Then…?" 

"Even if she did, I don't think she deserves to get locked up in here, she's not like--"

He narrowed his eyes. "Not like what?" 

"I mean she's… I don't know. I just didn't think Dream had a vendetta against her of all people too you know," Puffy sighed. "I've been trying to run the flower shop and bakery while she's been gone, not like there's that many people even left to be customers-- and I'm so fucking bad at it, dude. I don't know how she did it when I was here or when Dream asked me to go and mine shit for him."

"You and her are like-- Like a thing, right?" He asked. 

"Yeah." 

"Well, I mean, he seems to be collecting bargaining chips and tokens, like he's playing the world's worst game of poker or something." 

"You don't think he'd--" She looked to either side of the hall. "You don't think he'd use her against me, do you?" 

"I wouldn't really put much past him." 

"Fuck." Puffy scrubbed at her face. 

"Yup." He popped the ' _p'_ at the end."Feels bad doesn't it?" 

"What the fuck am I supposed to do?" 

Technoblade shrugged. "It's up to you." 

Puffy nodded, jaw clenching. "I, uh-- I originally came here to ask if you needed anything else." 

"More books. Literally anything entertaining before I start gnawing on my own leg for any kind of stimulus." He said. "And can you--" He glanced away. "I really hate to ask for anything from him, but could you see if Dream'll let me have a communicator? And if not, at least let Phil visit." 

"I don't think he'll--" She cleared her throat. "He's made it explicitly clear that if we even see Phil near the prison we have to slap him in cuffs." 

Technoblade grimaced. "Bit of an overreaction." 

"I don't know, Phil's pretty scary, not gonna lie." 

He snorted. "Yeah, but c'mon, he can't take down a whole prison single-handedly." 

"Orders are unfortunately orders." Puffy shrugged, the frown on her face as she said it betraying her growing uncertainty. 

He really just wanted to at least talk to Phil. Literally even if he had to borrow Dream's ring to do it and the man stood next to him the whole time.

"Just--" He rubbed at his cheek. "Can you ask if I can at least speak to Phil with a ring?" 

Puffy nodded. "I'll do my best." 

She retreated, the shift of armor fading with her. He turned back to his stack of ripped paper, snatched up a piece and folded it into a rudimentary plane. Tossing it, he watched it circle once and slam nose first into the ground. Making another, he tried to sail it through the bars and out into the hall, but it nose-dived again. He huffed, folded another, threw it as hard as he could, and it crumpled against the floor. 

The cell quickly became littered with his little aviation experiment, one out of thirty odd planes having made it beyond his cage. Between one blink and another, Dream stood at the bars, mask turning to slowly assess the litter with a blank masked stare. 

"Uh...heard you wanted to make a phone call." 

Technoblade shrugged. "Yeah, don't I get at least one according to the Miranda rights?" 

Dream chuckled. "Surprised you didn't collect on it earlier."

"Eh, I didn't really feel like it." 

The crunch of the lock disengaging made him briefly consider how easily, or not so easily, he could incapacitate Dream. Him; with no weapons, no armor, and no solid plan, while the other was still strapped up to the teeth and ready to kill him in a few blows. He discarded the idea of escape, let Dream step in and close the door behind him. Dream stepped over the peppered graveyard of paper airplanes, careful to not crunch any of them underfoot. He stopped in front of the bookcase, glanced over it, and most definitely noticed the books that were still flipped open to where the remnants of pages jutted from the spines like broken ribs. 

"Who're you calling?" 

"This twenty questions or something?* 

"No." Dream shrugged. "But I can always say no depending on who it is." 

"It's uh--" If he says Phil and Dream denied him this-- He didn't even want to think about what he would do. 

Dream waited, finger running idly over the spines of the yet untouched books on the shelf. 

"I wanted to, uh, talk to Phil."

Dream tilted his head. "Why?" 

"He's my friend." 

Dream turned back to him, arms crossed. "And?" 

"Have you never-- I mean, I know you're homeless and nobody likes you, but have you never had a friend?* 

"I-- I have a house. And I have friends."

"Name one." 

"...Punz." 

"Okay, soldiers don't count." 

"He's not just a soldier." 

Technoblade hissed low and through his teeth. "Can't believe the only friends you have are the ones who literally have to follow your orders. That's kinda sad, man." 

"I'm friends with George and Sapnap." 

He wrinkled his snout. "Okay the George thing is--" Technoblade waved his hand in the air. "I don't really know or want to know what your whole dynamic is, but didn't Sapnap and him kinda turn against you?"

Dream said nothing. 

"Yeah…" Technoblade "Uh, so about using the communicator?" 

"What if I said no?" 

He frowned. 

"What if I said you'd owe me a favor for using it?"

"That depends on the favor." 

"If I told you to find Tommy and kill him, would that be worth the exchange of a few minutes talking to your, uh… _friend_." Dream said friend like the word stung on the way out. 

And look, sure, sometimes he hated the kid, but he didn't want to kill him. "Uh, I'll be level with you. That's a hard no." 

"Mm." Dream looked out towards the hall. "What would be something you'd be willing to wager in exchange?" 

"Uh," his lip curled in a grimace. "I don't really have much right now, courtesy of you." 

"Okay." Dream hummed, tapping the chin of his mask. "Then all you have to do is tell me where Tommy is and I'll let you use it." 

"What makes you think I even know where he is?" 

Dream stayed silent. 

"Look, I-- Even if I knew-- What're you gonna do when you find him?" 

Dream shrugged. "Not sure yet." 

"He's--" Fuck, fuck, fuck-- He wanted to talk to Phil, he just wanted to talk to Phil and-- "He's at my cabin." 

Dream plucked the ring off his finger, approached where he still sat at the center of the bed, laid it in the middle of Technoblade's palm and manually curled his hand around it. 

"You have five minutes." 

Technoblade's mouth tasted like ash and dirt as he clenched his hand around the rune-etched ring, the thin vein of redstone that snapped and pulsed along the inside warm against his palm. It didn't feel like he had won anything here. The trade didn't even feel even. And Dream didn't leave either, he lingered nearby, watching, listening, and Technoblade couldn't just pick it up and tell Phil to get Tommy out and away before Dream came hunting him. 

Technoblade raised it up, tucked his fist under his chin as he stared at Dream, and spoke. 

"Hey, Phil." 

The nearly tinny, reverb-laced voice of Phil cropped up in his ear. _"Technoblade?"_

"The one and only." He drawled, and if he smiled at the sound of his voice he didn't care if Dream saw it. 

_"Holy shit. Are you okay, mate? You're doing okay, right? Ranboo told me Dream's got you locked up in that massive bloody prison."_

"Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm alive. And they even feed me regular meals, Phil. It's pretty great." He deadpanned and it felt like his ribs were squeezing around his chest. 

Phil laughed and he clung onto every note of it, a deserted man at the edge of an oasis. 

_"It's good to hear from you, Techno."_

"Yeah, it's good to hear from you too."

_"Is there-- Is there a reason you're, uh, using Dream's communicator to talk to me?"_

"Yeah, uh…" He paused."Fundy took mine during the whole Butcher fiasco. I never got it back."

_"Shit, mate. Was wondering why you hadn't called. Thought they'd like blocked communicators in there or something."_

"Naw." 

_"So... I assume we're on a time limit."_

He nodded, before remembering Phil couldn't see him. "Yup." 

_"I assume he's also in the room with you."_

"Yup." 

" _Well, as long as he can't hear me, it's fine."_ Phil sighed. _"Ranboo and I have been trying to get our hands on any of the plans Sam did up for the prison. We've gotten one rudimentary lay-out from early construction, but his base is locked up pretty tight."_

"Yeah, they've always been handy with red stone." 

_"Yeah… So, we've been looking at other ways to try and get you out. And uh, I'll be honest, mate, it's looking pretty shit."_

Technoblade laughed. Even if, for the first time in ages, in so long he had forgotten the last time he really had, he almost, just barely-- _barely,_ felt like crying. "It's all good. I figured it would be nigh impossible." 

_"Sorry, I really wish we could just storm the castle, you know, but we can't even bring withers in, they've got that place proofed for nearly anything we can think of and--"_ Phil paused, silence rang from the other side. _"Tommy, I'm talking to Technoblade right now, just give me a sec."_

Technoblade grimaced. "Is he asking to talk on it?" 

_"Naw, just trying to get me to approve his newest cobblestone build."_

"Why does he always have to ruin my property value?" He sighed. "Speaking of builds though, uh, did you get the cabin fixed up? And did you find Carl? The fire looked pretty bad, but they dragged me off before I could tell if it would wreck everything." 

_"It was pretty bad, not gonna lie. Uh, took a few days of salvaging stuff and gathering new material to rebuild, but it's back in ship-shape I think. And Carl's fine, Ranboo found him wandering near the turtles."_

"That's good."

_"Tommy's been helping repair the beehives and he's actually been a good hand to have around. Even if he makes some of the weirdest decisions on building things. I really don't understand his obsession with cobble."_

He wanted to tell him. Tell him to take Tommy and run, but Dream was right there, stalked closer, like a wolf at the first hint of prey. 

"Uh, Phil... let him know I said hi." His eyes flicked up to Dream who somehow, in some way, just seemed to _know_.

_"I'll pass it along."_

"Is he--" Technoblade rubbed at the back of his neck, shoved his knuckles up against the bottom of his jaw and worried he might turn the ring to dust under his fingers. "Is he doing okay?" 

_"Yeah, I suppose. Sometimes, he gets a little, eh-- Caught up in his head, ya know? But he's doing better out here I think."_

Technoblade nodded, palm tucked so tight around the ring it might as well have melded with it. 

_'Tell him, tell him, you have to tell him, tell him, you have to, you have to, tell him, tell hi--'_

He shook his head, dispelling the clamor of the voices. "Uh, that's good." 

Dream tapped the back of his wrist and extended his hand, palm up. 

"I, uh, I gotta go now, Phil. I'll try and talk to you again soon, okay. Stay safe." He paused. "Please." 

_"You too, mate. Hopefully talk to you again soon, yeah?"_

He looked at the waiting hand, watched the leather encased palm and fingers and not an inch of skin could be seen, every single little opening that could have been made between pieces of fabric either wrapped shut or carefully and meticulously covered. The duel he had with Dream, the one he happened to win by a thread and with the weight of a fair fight over them, flickered across his mind, and he knew that Phil and Tommy, even together, wouldn't be enough if Dream decided to go all out, no holds barred. And Phil was a formidable fighter, an excellent one, his undying title certainly earned depsite his single life compared to the multiples most of them held, but he still only had the one. 

_'Tell him! Tell him! Tell him! Tell him! Tell him! Tell hi--'_

"Phil, Dream is--" 

A hand snatched his wrist, wrenched his hand out from where he had hidden it under his chin, squeezed so hard he flexed his fingers in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure. The ring clattered to the ground as the connection popped and fizzled out with Phil's last frantic question. 

"Nice try." Dream plucked up the ring, pocketed it and canted his head down at him. 

"I'm not gonna apologize." 

"I don't expect you to." 

"Then whatdya want?" He grit out, teeth bared. 

"Just curious," Dream shrugged. "Why do you even care about him?" 

"I don't." 

"No, no, no…" Dream practically tutted, laying a hand on his shoulder. "But you do."

"I--" 

The fingers squeezed, digging into the meat of his arm. "It's almost pathetic too. You know, he would rant about you sometimes in exile. He'd blame you for most of it, even if it wasn't true. To him, you're the reason he lost his discs, lost L'Manberg, lost his brother. You're like his boogeyman. Why even turn around and try to defend him when he literally backstabbed you and landed you here?" 

He brushed off Dream's hand, leaning back. "There's always-- There's always a chance. I have to believe maybe he can still do something good. I mean, he's just a kid." 

"He loves the government and he's always loved L'Manberg. You would never change that in him." 

Technoblade snorted. "Well, I _really_ can't do that now that you have me stuck here." 

Dream shrugged. "If I let you out now, it sets a bad example for the rest of them." 

"You open the lid even a little, everything comes out, huh?" 

Dream chuckled. "Something like that." 

Instead of leaving the cell after that, like any normal person, Dream plucked a pearl from his pocket, held it up between his thumb and forefinger and lazily tossed it beyond the bars. Technoblade blinked, the pop of glass ringing in his ears, and before he knew it, Dream had retreated down the hall. 

What a waste of a pearl, honestly. All for a needlessly dramatic exit. Technoblade rolled his eyes and turned back to his paper planes. He folded another, bent the wings slightly, held it up, closed one eye and looked down the nose of it, tried to line it up just right, and-- 

"What? You're just going to let him fucking kill me?"

Technoblade threw the plane and it veered right, slamming into the wall. He huffed out a breath, turning to see Not-Tommy perched on the desk. "Correction; not you. Considering you're Not-Tommy." 

Not-Tommy sneered. "Is that what you call me? You could've at least done something more clever like TommyIsn't or TommyAin't. Shit, man." He threw his hand out, gesturing out towards the bars. "But really? That's fucking it then? You're just selling him out to the fucking wolves?" 

"He sold me out first!" The spike of guilt that drove between his shoulders was ignored for the biting anger he clung onto instead.

Not-Tommy lifted his lip in a snarl, hopping off the desk. "Did you consider if he even had a fucking choice?" 

Technoblade got up from the bed to collect the scattered remains of planes, filling the crook of his arms with paper. "How the heck would I know that? It's not like he sat me down and explained every tiny thing kicking around in his head that led to him _drugging my drink_." 

Not-Tommy sidled in front of him, and he looked up from where he had stooped to pick up a plane to see the hallucination glaring down at him. "Think about it. Think about what Ranboo said, what you saw in the cabin, how Dream talked about Tommy's time in exile. Shit, even how Quackity treated him. Use that thick fucking pig skull of yours and have one god damned coherent thought." 

He shook his head, discarding the planes on the desk. "He still agreed to do it. It doesn't matter how it got to that point." 

"He tried to warn you." 

Technoblade turned on his heel at that and flung an arm out. "And I tried to warn him! That quite literally makes us even!" 

"Fuck you." 

He blinked. "What?" 

"Fuck you!" And Not-Tommy stomped up into his space, crowded and angry, non-existent finger jabbing into his chest. "You're just a fucking coward!" 

"How am I the coward?" He spread his arms. "You're not even real! Why are you even yelling at me about this?" 

"I'm as real as you make me! I'm as real as every little fucking thing you turn over in your head when you think about him-- About all of them. And I'm as real as every little thing you've ever fucked up too."

He shook his head, huffing out a breath, scrubbing at his face and kneading at his eyes. "Why now? Why show up now? Why not days ago? Why come and go and leave randomly? Why show up after this all started--"

"It's your head, big man, I don't make the fucking rules or the guidelines. And nothing is ever so fucking clean cut, is it? Not everything has to make sense. You see blood and people dying all the time, does that ever make any fucking sense? When the voices tell you to kill and maim and tear everything around you into pieces, do you always listen?" 

Every single word sent him a step backwards, his heart leapt up to his throat, and he didn't even know why it startled him so much, the venom dripping off of every syllable, but it made his vision flicker and waver, blood pooled at his feet and bones sprouted in scatters of bleach white and sickly yellows across the empty floor. 

He blinked and it was gone.

He blinked and it was back again. 

He retreated another step, until his shoulders collided with the stone wall, until he slipped down it, until his legs folded, and he stared up at Not-Tommy as he stalked closer. Tried to ignore the way blood lapped at his heels and inched up towards his calves. 

"At least that's been there from the start." He started, brows furrowed and eyes pinched. "At least I know how to deal with that. I don't know how to--" _deal with this._

"How is this any different then?" Not-Tommy gestured around at the growing graveyard, to even more corpses spilling from the walls and collapsing in the cell. 

And he knew it wasn't real. He was used to this kind of thing. He could tell when it was just his head. But he stared at the bodies, all tangled limbs and familiar faces, all too familiar, and he--

"I don't know." He gripped at his skull, hunching over. "I don't know." He shook his head. "Why do _you_ have to keep haunting me?" 

"Maybe it's guilt. Maybe it's something else." Not-Tommy said, voice flat and monotone. "Maybe it's just a reminder of how it could've all been." He looked up and Not-Tommy had his arms out, palms up, the flickering, snapping images of Wilbur and Phil over either shoulder. "One, big happy family, right?" 

He screwed his eyes shut, buried his head in his arms and counted. Counted from one to fifty and then backwards and controlled his breathing with the careful measured steps of a soldier, just like Phil had taught him, just like he had helped walk him through the first time he found Technoblade curled up against the corner of his room, shaking and staring wide-eyed at empty space filled to the brim with rot. 

It faded, as it always did. 

Until it was just him and his careful breaths and the quiet. The chatter of the voices a dull and welcoming hum compared to everything else. He sighed, sagging back against the wall, skull thudding against the obsidian as he tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. It hadn't been that bad in a long while, not since he had let the withers loose on L'Manberg and slaughtered the crowd, and had made the foolish mistake of actually trying to sleep that same night. 

"That sucked..." he huffed, laughing, thin and wrung out. 

"Does that fucking happen a lot?" 

He jerked his head towards the entrance of his cell and he immediately regretted even looking up. Quackity lazily leaned against the bars, hands wrapped around them, a smirk climbing up one side of his face. 

"Surprised to see me, piggy?" 

Technoblade groaned. "I literally cannot catch a break." 

"Aw, c'mon, Techno. We're pals, aren't we?" 

"Pals is definitely not what I would label us." He gestured between himself and Quackity. 

"Then what would you label us?" 

"I wouldn't label us at all." 

Quackity tilted his head. "So, do you like, spend all your time in here arguing with the air or something? Have you actually fucking lost it after only a week in jail?" 

"Uh… How much of that did you see?" 

"Enough to know you're fucked up, Techno." 

He wrinkled his snout. "Says the man who smells like a sewage pipe." 

"You don't even know what I fucking had to go through to get here." 

"I had heard you had been holed up in the sewers, but I didn't think you'd taken to it so… _well._ " 

"Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." 

"What exactly are you even here for, Quackity, it's not like you can even get in here and--" The clinking of keys shot his brows up. "Uh, how did you… How exactly did you get those?" 

"Someone on the inside owed me a bit of a favor." 

"I assume it wasn't Dream."

"No, fuck him. Once I finally kill your ass, he's next on the list anyway." 

"Why are you so obsessed with killing me?" He asked, standing as Quackity tried one key and then another. "There's this little thing called giving up, you know." 

"Because I have to." 

"Icarus probably said that too." 

"Who?"

Technoblade sighed. "Look, Quackity, this doesn't end well for you. You open that door and I will literally smear you across the floor." 

"You don't even have a fucking weapon." Quackity patted the axe belted to his hip. "And I brought mine." 

"I don't need one to kill you." 

"Big talk for a man stuck in a cell. You don't even look well, Techno, you're hearing and seeing shit, fucking talking to yourself. It's as good a time as ever." 

"Quackity--" He warned, voice dropped low in his chest. "Do not open that door." 

"What're you gonna do, stop me?" 

He grabbed the bars, braced himself against the door as Quackity tried to push it open, the hinges meant to swing inwards, putting him at a home advantage. Quackity nearly growled under his breath, pushing so hard Technoblade could hear the labored bellows of his breaths. 

"You really think you can beat me in a strength competition, Quackity? I knew you were stupid, but I didn't think it was this ba--" 

The glint of metal and the whistling swing of an axe made him reel back, the clang of netherite striking steel rang in the cell and he winced as his ears clutched onto the sound and played it over and over. With nothing holding the door shut, it struck the obsidian wall with a clattering thud. 

Quackity raised the axe again, silhouetted by the torches that stood sentry beyond the door. And Technoblade considered pile driving his dumb ass into the ground, discarding him there, and tearing down the hall and getting the hell out of here while his cage was opened. But the voices swelled, flooding through his head like a tidal wave, and all he saw was _red_. 

The axe swung down and he side-stepped the sloppy slash, grabbed Quackity's arm, yanked until his feet fell out from under him and he went tumbling across the stone. Technoblade stalked after him, shoulders hunched, back curled and tusks gnashing together as he went to pin Quackity to the ground with a hoof. The man managed to roll out of the way and his foot slammed into the obsidian with a jarring thud that ricocheted up his leg. He grimaced, looking up to where Quackity hopped to his feet, more nimble and agile than he had expected. 

"Nice try, big boy." 

"Please, do yourself a favor and never call me that again." He waited for Quackity to swing first, eyes flicking from his arms to the position of his feet, assessing. 

Quackity's glanced to the right and Technoblade met the blow, arms braced as he stopped the swing at the handle. He pushed back and Quackity stumbled with the shove, axe falling to his side once more. 

"I don't know exactly what you think you'll be able to do here." 

"I'm gonna fucking kill you." 

He snorted. "Good luck with that." 

Quackity snarled, eyes narrowing as he slashed out at him again, and again, and Technoblade stepped back from each one, the hiss of a blade snagging his shirt once and then twice, but never cutting skin. A wall collided with his back and the bite of netherite shallowly sliced across his torso. Blood immediately welled up to the surface, sliding hot and sickly down his front. 

Quackity grinned at the small victory and Technoblade let him have it, before he lowered his shoulder and slammed him backwards. The axe spun and clattered to a stop inches away from Quackity's grasping hand as he lay, sprawled on his back. 

"You really think you can actually hurt me, Quackity?" He bit out, looming over him. "You think you're that good?" 

"I don't have to think anything, I just fucking will." 

"See, that's your problem. You don't think. You just--" 

The sudden sharp sting that welled up in his ankle had him blinking and looking down. The small dagger buried nearly to the hilt in his right leg wasn't what he expected to see, nor Quackity's hand attached to it. Technoblade took a step back, put his weight on the impaled leg, and found it crumpling beneath him. He huffed out a breath, stuck on one knee as he grappled for the hilt of the blade and only met the slick slide of blood. 

"You talk too fucking much," Quackity said, reclaiming his axe, smearing his thumb through the crimson collected on the netherite, and flicking it at him. 

"So do you," he grit out.

Managing to get his leg beneath him he watched Quackity circle him, like a shark in the water, blood dripping off the axe in his hands. He tracked him, turning his head and then looking over his other shoulder as the man wound a full circuit around. Hands held out, he gave Quackity every opportunity to take one good swing at him, the muscles in his leg twinging and twitching around the knife still embedded in it. 

The frustrated little growl that left Quackity nearly reminded him of Tommy, and he almost laughed, before he narrowly managed to dodge the axe that tried to bury itself in the nook between his neck and shoulder. 

"I even stood still for you and you still managed to miss."

"You fucking moved after I swung!" Quackity all but squawked as he moved to swing again. 

Technoblade leaned away from the first swipe, but he missed the sudden drawback with the blunt end of the axe. His face jerked to the side with a jarring crack. Blood seeped over his tongue and stars burst behind his eyelids as he stumbled, the back of his knees colliding with the edge of his bed, vision still whited around the edges and skull ringing. 

Something slammed into the junction of his shoulder. It was nothing at first, just a weight on his collar bone, and then the hot splash of blood and the nausea that sent him to his knees swelled over him. He clutched at the axe buried into his shoulder, hands slipping off the handle, hooves clacking against the wood and unable to get a steady grip. Hands brushed away his attempts, a foot planting itself against his sternum and pushing as the axe was wrenched from him in another arcing spray of blood. 

He fell forward, onto his hands and knees, panting and huffing and listening to the growing patter and slap of liquid against the obsidian as it pooled below him. The tip of a boot tilted his chin up, and Quackity grinned down at him, head canted and axe rested against his shoulder, the crimson sliding off it beginning to stain his clothes. 

"Where's all that big talk now, huh?" Quackity sneered.

He grit his teeth, exhaled sharply from his nose, and spit off to the side as he clutched at his shoulder. Quackity let him rise to his feet again, didn't even move to stop him or put up any defense, just watched him with half-lidded eyes and a smirk; all hubris. Technoblade squeezed at the wound on his shoulder, blood still sliding out under his palm in time with his heart beat. He bared his teeth, snout wrinkled, tusks on full display as he glared down the foolish little man who dared sink an axe into his flesh and tear any amount of blood from him. 

Quackity's eyes widened at the last second, as Technoblade wrenched him up by the lapels of his jacket, lifted him higher and higher until he flailed and kicked, boots striking into his ribs and a knee into his chin, and Technoblade ignored it all. He ducked his head at the swing of the axe, the connection of metal against metal betraying the loss of his crown. Quackity tried to hit him again, but he threw him as hard as he could into the ground and watched the axe spin from his hands and nestle itself against the far wall with a click.

He stepped over Quackity, straddled him, and pinned his shoulders, sticking him like a bug to a pin board as he tried to rise. 

"Did you put him up to it?" He asked, pushing hard enough he heard Quackity wheeze out a nervous, choking laugh. 

"What the fuck-- What the fuck are you talking about?" 

"The--" He waved a hand, trying to find the right word. "Whatever the heck he put in my drink." 

" _Oh,_ " Quackity said, lips splitting into a wide smile. "Oh, you mean Tommy." 

"Yeah, that guy. Now answer the question before I decide your spine would look better at a ninety degree angle." 

"He's the one who came up with the idea when I told him what we were planning to do. That kid's actually got some fucking brain cells. You shoulda seen how eager he was to trick you, I've never seen him like that before." 

"You're lying."

Quackity raised his hands. "I'm not, I'm not, I swear." 

He lifted Quackity by his jacket, slammed him back against the stone and listened to the crack of his skull against it. Quackity coughed, eyes blinking and rolling about in their sockets before focusing back on him.

"I'm telling the fucking truth, Techno, jesus fuck. He offered to do it, he made the shit, he even swam across the fucking water to do it. He fucking drugged you and you let him, man. You let him do it!" 

"Shut up." 

Quackity laughed. 

He grit his teeth, jaw clenching so hard he feared a molar might crack under the pressure. The voices tripped over one another, roaring to the front as they called for him to bash Quackity's head against the stone until the back of it caved and spilled like a rotten pumpkin. To wrap his hooves around his throat until he kicked and flailed under him and fell still. To pick up the axe at the far side of the cell and chop every limb from his body until he was merely a bloody stump. 

He moved his hands to the scar still knit over Quackity's throat, pressed down, felt the first buck under him, hands turned to scrabbling and scratching at his arms, drawing furrows of blood on their fifth pass. The animalistic flicker and dart of Quackity's eyes made the voices croon and waver and sing and he squeezed harder--

"Technoblade." 

He didn't relent, forearms shaking as he applied more and more pressure, shoulder aching as more blood sluiced down his front and fell onto a bared teeth Quackity in the spreading pattern of poppies. 

"Let go of him."

He shook his head, Quackity's face slowly turning redder and redder, and it was only a matter of time, only a matter of seconds before-- 

Fingers dug into the wound on his shoulder, wormed their way down to the bone and wrenched. He yelped, high and animal as he fell to the side with them. Batting the hand away he scrambled back, clutched at the wound and hid it from view as he looked up to see a rather unamused Punz crouched beside him. 

"Dream leaves for twenty minutes and you already managed to somehow cause trouble." 

Technoblade gestured to Quackity. "Don't look at me, he's the idiot that decided to bust in here and try to kill me." 

Punz mused the blood on his hand between the pads of his fingers, looking at it rather than Technoblade. "At least you didn't try to leave." 

"Fuck-- Holy fuck-- You almost fucking killed me, what the _fuck_!" Quackity barked, voice rough as he sat up and coughed. 

Punz sighed, standing and making his way over to Quackity who rubbed at his throat and glared at Technoblade. 

"Come on." Punz grabbed Quackity by the collar of his jacket and hoisted him up. 

"Hey, hey, where the hell are you taking me-- Wait a second, I'm not finished here--" 

"You've got your own cell to get to." 

"What? You can't just fucking lock me up! I've got rights!" 

Punz said nothing as he dragged Quackity out of the cell, made sure to close the door behind him, and pick up the discarded keys left behind the bars and lock it. 

"I'll bring you a potion in a bit. I've gotta handle this first." Punz said before marching a still struggling Quackity out of sight. 

Technoblade pressed at the wound, his vision sluggish and dark at the edges. And while blood loss wasn't a common worry for him, considering he usually ended battles less than scathed, this wasn't unfamiliar. He ripped at a section of his now tattered shirt, courtesy of Quackity, and balled it up over the steady weep of blood. It wasn't a solution, but it would slow it enough he wouldn't pass out before Punz got back. 

He pushed back against the ground with his heels, moving slowly, until his back hit the bed and he sagged against it, breaths still heavy from the fight, adrenaline still snapping up and down his spine and singing at the ends of his limbs. As it faded and drained from him, the pain settled in, sharp and deep and hollow. The whole side of his face felt pulped and ripe, his shoulder and collar bone ached so deeply it flipped and twisted his gut. It wasn't the worst pain he'd ever felt, but it was less than pleasant. 

"Well, that was fucking something." 

Technoblade sighed. "Welcome back..." 

Not-Tommy looked over at him, eyes a duller blue than usual, looking more like the Tommy he had encountered in his cabin rather than the bright blues from the memory he had used to craft him in the first place.

"You think he's telling the fucking truth?" 

Technoblade looked at his hand, clenched and unclenched it and ignored the way his vision wavered. "Does it matter if he wasn't?" 

"Naw, not really." 

Technoblade eyed his blood splattered and fallen crown, tipped over and resting on the opposite side of the cell. "You think Dream'll kill him?" 

Not-Tommy shrugged. "Maybe." 

He turned over the one question in his head that he wanted to ask. But it didn't even matter if he voiced it, Not-Tommy already knew it.

"Guess we'll find out what the fuck happened once he gets back."

Technoblade clenched his jaw, avoiding looking over at the reminder of what he had sold off to Dream for a single conversation. "Now we wait." 

Not-Tommy laughed, all breathy and thin. "Now we fucking wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, in my defense, if anyone's getting into this prison through the sewer system, it's gonna be Quackity and his sheer determination to kill a pig. Not free his friends or anything of course. Just kill a pig. 😔✌️gotta love this dude.


	8. Flint and Steel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Srry this took so long akshshshsbs

Not-Tommy vanished after a few minutes, fading with the slipping spill of adrenaline seeping from his limbs. He sagged back against the bed, blood still sluggishly sliding it's way down his shoulder and staining his shirt nearly half red. Blinking, he tried to focus on the bars of the cell, waited to see a white mask, or blonde hair and a white jacket, or the colorful wool of Puffy-- Anyone really. And after the minutes wound on too long he grasped at his shoulder, tried to stem the flow of blood and wondered if they would all really leave him here to bleed out on the floor. 

Punz _finally_ returned with a potion just as Puffy did, the both of them eyeing each other and passing their respective items through the bars. The two went back to their small staring contest and he couldn't help but clear his throat to remind the two that he was indeed still there (and still very much steadily bleeding out). 

"Uh, you two good or… am I intruding on something?" 

Punz turned on his heel and left without saying a word, Puffy stared at the back of his head the whole way before finally turning to Technoblade with a smile that didn't match the way her eyes had been narrowed and jaw clenched seconds before. He grabbed up the potion when his vision got to the point the blur became concerning, downed it, and winced at the tingling and sharp sting of his shoulder knitting itself back together. Puffy still lingered outside the bars, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. 

"I, uh, brought some of my own books and stuff. And I don't know maybe it's dumb, but like puzzles and junk. Like those little blocks made of littler blocks or whatever." 

"Those also yours or...?" 

"Naw-- Well, kinda.They're like old Christmas gifts and stuff. Like stocking stuffers you throw in a drawer and forget, you know?" 

"Always a fan of regifting," he deadpanned. 

"Hey, it's probably better than staring at the walls." 

"I can, uh... tell you exactly how many blocks are in each one in case you're curious." 

She hissed under her breath. "Yeah, no, I'm good. But man, uh, sorry it isn't more entertaining in there." 

"Could always let me out," he said, shrugging. 

"No can do. Not unless ducky says so." 

"Ducky?" He raised a brow. 

She laughed. "Yeah, uh, Dream has a tendency to follow people around like a little lost duckling so the name kind of stuck after the first time." 

"And does he know you call him that?" 

Puffy shrugged. "Don't know if he would even care." 

"So does your, uh, little duckling have a plan with all this? Or is he just blindly throwing TNT and hoping it blows up something interesting." 

Puffy sighed. "It's… hard to tell. I've tried to ask Eret about it, but even they don't know. Dream's a bit, eh, mum's the word 'bout--" She gestured to him. "This." 

"You ever--" He paused. "You ever think maybe he just does this stuff for fun?" 

"Like?" 

"Maybe he finds enjoyment in the whole thing. Uh, pulling the strings, watching us try and figure out why, when the only reason is 'cause he can. He decided he wanted to lock us in a box and guess what, he did it, because he _can_." He shrugged. "Nothing more than that." 

"I assumed he wanted to like, corral the chaos. Get the SMP under control again." Puffy sighed. "I just-- I mean I don't think this is the best way to do it. There's gotta be something else besides--" She gestured to him. "Locking everyone in cages and blowing half of L'Manberg to bits. I think it really started when he exiled Tommy. Like he could've just talked to him, made him fix George's house up and that'd be it. You don't throw a kid out of his only home and keep him from his family and friends. That's messed up, dude." 

"I really don't think Dream's out here winning any morality contests." 

"Yeah..." 

"You know, for a bit there, I thought our interests aligned." He looked down. "And they still kinda do. He is performing minor terrorism in L'Manberg after all. But it's off. 'Cause, see, he's deliberately hurting the people, not just stamping out the government. The whole point was to make them realize they didn't need the government at all, but he's just-- Enjoying himself a bit too much." 

"You hurt people in the process of what you wanted too." 

He narrowed his eyes. "I did, but they bit me first." 

"Techno, you didn't have to summon the withers and you didn't have to slaughter the crowd… You didn't have to do any of that." 

He laughed, wry and dried out. "The only language you people listen to is violence. They formed a government right in front of me, right after I helped them, after I had spent weeks explaining why I was helping them, the conditions for aiding them in their little coup. They wouldn't even let me give my speech either! They never wait to hear what I have to say until I'm blowing stuff up or laying down skulls, and even then, none of you listen." 

Puffy sighed. "If you only ever show them violence, how are they supposed to think your motive is anything but that?" 

"Uh… I'll admit, it's all I'm really good at." 

"There has to be another way." 

"What are you gonna do? Kill Dream with kindness? Kill L'Manberg with a hug?" He threw a hand out. "Violence makes them look at you, it makes them reconsider, and it sends a message. It's a universal language." 

Puffy frowned. "People live there, you know that, right? That's their home... Maybe I don't agree with everything about L'Manberg, but that's people's home, Techno." 

"The government isn't their house. The institution isn't where they live. They'd still live in their houses if the flag fell. That doesn't change." 

"What are you willing to do to see that flag fall though?" 

"You want me to be completely honest here? Whatever it takes." 

Puffy shook her head and laughed. "You sound like him." 

He wrinkled his snout. The comparison an annoying one all things considered. 

"Dream has to be stopped somehow, I've decided that much. But if you become a problem too, once this is all over..." She narrowed her eyes. "I'll make sure you stop being one." 

"Alright." 

She nodded, turned on her heel, and marched back down the hall. There weren't a lot of people he considered worthy opponents, or even capable of killing him. But he was pretty sure, on Puffy's wrong side, he'd have a considerable challenge to face. 

He collected the bag Puffy had left the moment she was out of sight. Dumped it all out onto the bed and picked over it, rummaged and set aside anything mildly interesting and colorful and left the rest to gather dust while he tried to stave the boredom off. Like fortifying against a storm with only sand, the crash of waves would eventually wash it all smooth and hollow again and he would be back to square one. Laid out on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and wondering how much around him was real and how much he had invented. 

Picking up a cube composed of smaller, different colored cubes he sat cross-legged on the bed and spent the next thirty minutes trying to make all the sides their own respective colors. And he didn't consider himself stupid, not by most standards, but he felt pretty dumb every time he rotated the cube and it caused more squares to slot out of place. It seemed simple in theory, but he was more inclined towards picking apart governments and pieces of literature, not trying to work out puzzle games. 

It occupied his time at least, and when he still hadn't managed to get all the colors to line up, he contemplated tearing it apart, wrenching it to pieces square by square and laying it out across the floor in the completed pattern. At least he would feel like he had accomplished something here--

"Blocks, eh?" 

He sighed and didn't even bother looking up from his task. Apparently Not-Tommy had decided to wander his way back. "Yeah, it's all I got, so…" 

Not-Tommy sneered. "You're not doing good in here, are you, big man?" 

"What gave you that idea?" He asked, glancing up. 

Not-Tommy tapped the side of his head. "You're fucked in the head."

He curled his lip, thought about throwing the cube at him, and refrained just barely. "Says the hallucination." 

Not-Tommy shrugged. "At least I don't talk to myself." 

"Nothing wrong with having a little heart to heart with yourself time to time." 

"This what you call a heart to heart?" 

"More like 'annoying kid that won't leave me alone to guy forced to sit around and listen to said annoying kid', but sure, yeah." 

Not-Tommy sneered. "You're fucking lucky I'm even here." 

He turned back to the puzzle in his hands. "Not like I have a choice in you being here or not." 

Not-Tommy lapsed into silence after that and that was the biggest indicator in figuring out that this was still a figment of Tommy and not the real thing, or worse, a ghost. Tommy would have started talking about women or literally the most random thing that popped into his head, relentlessly and endlessly. This Tommy was more quiet and subdued, like his head couldn't do a perfect job of filling in the blanks. 

He glanced up to see Not-Tommy staring down at the crown still discarded and fallen against the wall of the cell. 

"You gonna put it back on?"

He turned over the cube in his hands, twisted it and frowned at the lack of results. "Naw." 

"Why the fuck not?" 

He shrugged. "Uh, I don't know… Doesn't feel the same." 

"You're an idiot." 

He rolled his eyes. "Please elaborate, how exactly am I an idiot?" 

"It's just a crown, it doesn't mean anything, plus your forehead looks fucking weird without it." 

He reached up and frowned. "So now you've stooped to insulting my appearance, huh?"

"You're the rocks for brains dumbass who won't put your crown back on." 

"What if I just hate wearing it now?" 

"That isn't true." 

He dropped the cube on the bed and looked up to Not-Tommy who just glared at him. "Fine, if I put it back on will you stop being annoying." 

"Yup." 

"Great…" He stood, meandered over and scooped up the crown. Plopping it back on he turned to Not-Tommy arms raised. "See, there you go, happy?" 

"Fucking ecstatic." 

"Glad to hear it..." he grumbled, returning to his perch on the bed and the cube.

"What the fuck is this?" 

He glanced over to see Not-Tommy bent over the books Puffy had left. 

"Uh... I know you probably don't read a lot, but those are called books." 

"I know they're books, dickhead. I mean why the fuck did she give you romance novels? What the fuck even is this one? Says something about an alpha werewolf on the cover-- What the fuck is this shit?" 

He grimaced. "Uh… you probably shouldn't even be looking at some of those." 

Not-Tommy snorted. "Whatever, old man. You finished with that thing yet?" 

He frowned, held it up in the flat of his palm, and it was somehow worse than when he had started. "Uh…" 

Not-Tommy laughed, loud and raucous. "You fucking suck."

He chucked it at Not-Tommy before he could reconsider, the plastic making a sickening crack against the obsidian and rolling to a stop.

"Nice throw, dickhead." 

"Don't you have anywhere else you could be?" He asked.

"Nope." 

"Awesome..." He sighed.

"Hey, do you think you killed him?" 

He grimaced. "Why do you always do that?" 

"Do what?" Not-Tommy asked, head tilted, like he was completely innocent here. 

"Try and instigate me into--" He waved his hand. "Whatever it is you're going for." 

"I have no idea what you're on about, big man." 

"Sure you don't..." 

Not-Tommy shrugged. "Just wondering if you think he's dead." 

" _Bruh_ \-- See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! You keep doing this thing where you're all normal one second and then the next you're trying to get me to--"

"Am I interrupting something?" 

He froze, shoulders tensing and attention snapping over to the cell bars. Dream had decided to make his appearance again apparently. And he didn't try to think about how he stumbled to his feet far too eagerly or how he loped towards him and barely resisted the urge to reach through the bars, grab the man by the collar of his jacket and slam him face-first into them. Instead he crossed his arms and grit his teeth, eyes narrowed slightly. 

"Naw, just me and a whole lot of obsidian having a good ol' conversation." 

"Well…" Dream paused, glancing around the cell. "I heard you had gotten into a bit of trouble while I was gone." 

"Yeah, uh, your idea didn't really work so you might as well let me outta here. Your prison isn't idiot proof apparently." 

"Someone on the inside let him in, otherwise he wouldn't have made it past the first portal." 

"Can't even trust your own cronies, huh?" 

"No." Dream said and silence followed in his wake, the unspoken questions heavy and swollen between them.

"So… did you find him?" 

Dream reached into his pocket, pulled free a flight feather, long and gray and frayed and tattered at the edges, the pinion snapped, the whole thing pitiful and sagging compared to how it should look. The man slotted it between the bars, dropped it, and let it drift to the obsidian. 

He watched it and blood roared in his ears. "Where is he?" 

"Here." 

He ground his teeth, tusks clicking together. "And Tommy?" 

"Missing." 

"Couldn't get to him, huh?" 

"I knew birds could be defensive when it came to their nests, but uh…" Dream reached up to his shoulder and kneaded at it. "Didn't expect that much of a fight." 

The corners of his lips lifted at the thought of Phil messing Dream up something fierce. "Eh, so what now? You gonna go and scour the SMP for him? He could be anywhere by now." 

Dream worried his communicator ring off of his finger and tossed it into the cell where it plinked and rolled to a stop on the stone. 

"You're going to call him and ask where he is." 

He huffed, amused. "Like he'll even tell me." 

"You'll get it out of him, unless you want--" Dream glanced down to the feather and back up to him. "--him to pay for it." 

He grimaced, lip curling, and teeth gritting. A low blow to use Phil against him. He didn't quite enjoy Dream having that bargaining chip in his sticky little mits. He trudged for the ring, snatched it up, held it in his fist and half-heartedly brought up a connection. 

"Tommy?" 

_'Youre a bitch and I fucking hate you, you ugly pig piece of sh--'_

He sighed and shot Dream a tired glare. 

"I really don't think he'll be telling me anything." 

Dream stared blankly, grabbed the bars of the cell door and tapped his finger against them. "Try." 

"Tommy, look, I know that I--" 

_'I know he's there. I know he's probably asking you to tell me where I am, right? Well fuck you-- I won't. You fucking-- You told him where we were, Techno, what the fuck? Why would you do that? Why-- Why would you--'_

"I don't know-- I don't know, man, look I-- He's got Phil here, okay." 

_'That's literally your fucking fault! That's because of you! What the hell? Fucking hell, Techno, listen I'm-- I'm not gonna tell you where I am. I'm not-- Dream's a fucked up motherfucker and I'm not going back. I'm-- I'm sorry, but I'm not.'_

"Alright..." 

The connection dropped like the thud of an anvil and his shoulders fell with the weight of it. The silence on the other end of the line ate at him, the frantic way Tommy had spoken, like he was still running, breathing heavy, and he should have never-- He should have never sold them out. He should have never--

"Well…?" Dream asked. 

"He's not gonna tell me, man... He hates me." 

"Too bad..." Dream hummed. "I'll be sure to send you some more feathers later." 

He huffed out a breath, an exasperated and choked laugh more than anything. "You're messed up, you know that?" 

"It's not really my fault, Techno. I mean… They're the one who got us to this point." 

He narrowed his eyes."How?" 

"I gave them everything. I let them in. I let them have a place here. I gave them a family and a community and a home, but because Wilbur didn't like my rules, didn't like listening, he ruined that. I even-- I _let_ him have his little nation-state, I let him play president and leader and have his land. But that was never going to be enough for him." 

"Don't forget that you also convinced him to blow it all up in the end." 

Dream laughed. "I did, didn't I?"

"And what about Tommy? Why keep going after him? He's just a kid." 

"He's the center of all of this. He, uh, well… He rallies them, keeps them asking for more and fighting, and he's a nuisance. Like a-- Like a bug in my shoe. And I need to dig him out and remove him and make sure he stays out this time." 

"You gonna kill him?" 

"No… He's more useful alive." 

"You just keep collecting things to put in your vault, huh?" 

"What's the point of a vault if it doesn't have a few valuables?" 

"And me?" 

Dream tilted his head. "You're more of an... experiment." 

"Experiment? Uh, what kind of experiment?" 

Dream shrugged. "If I tell you what I'm testing it ruins the results, doesn't it?" 

He grimaced. "You're a bit unhinged arent'cha?" 

The man leaned closer, fingers wrapped around the cell bars, tightening to the point he could have sworn the metal groaned dangerously. "I've never felt more level-headed in my entire existence." 

He side-eyed him. "Alright Caligula kinnie, chill." 

Dream snorted at that, relented his grip and backed away; from straight backed and nearly dangerous to shoving his hands back into his pockets and slouching in an instant. "I'll be back later, Techno." 

"How later is later?" 

Dream shrugged. "Depends... Hours, days, weeks. We'll see..." 

The man pulled his hand out of his pocket and tossed something metallic into the cell where it clanged and clattered and settled, round and unassuming against the floor. He looked back up from it to see Dream completely vanished. Picking it up, he realized, as he settled it in his palm, it was a compass, and when he opened it, the needle trembled and pointed directly to the right of his cell. He wasn't one hundred percent sure what it was pointing to, it wasn't labeled, but he had an inkling that it had something to do with the feather still crumpled against the floor. 

He turned and watched the needle stay true, and it didn't spin, it didn't whirl about and not land on anything, it stuck fast and continued its indication that someone, somewhere was very much alive. Pacing to the farthest corner of the bars he tried to press his snout beyond it, to peer down the corridors, see into any other cells, catch a glimpse of anything beyond his own cage. No such luck and he retreated, cupped the compass in his palms, and watched it, unblinking, and hoped it never wavered. 

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, flinching at every moment the needle jumped off course even slightly. As he strained his ears for any sign of someone in the cells beside him, or further down the corridor, as he wondered if Tommy had made it somewhere where he wouldn't be eaten alive by mobs by time night fell. It must have been a while, as his eyes burned, his shoulders pinched, hooves and legs numb when he unfolded them from their crossed position and settled back into pacing in front of the bars. He tried not to look at the compass, but he found himself glancing at it every minute, flipping open the cover and checking that the needle hadn't moved, before closing it again and repeating the process. 

The voices chattered and warbled and spat the worst case scenario directly into his ears, and for a moment they sounded like Phil, they sounded like distant screams, like the gurgles of a dying man, like explosions and bones breaking and wings fluttering and feathers sifting, and it was hard to pick apart his harshened breathing from the miasma pressing at his ear drums. Glancing past the cell bars he ignored the people standing beyond them, the immaterial, faulty way their features had been composed clueing him in on the fact they were less than real. 

He paced and paced and more and more of them joined the growing crowd, but they all spoke in the same voices, the ones that gnawed at his ears and grew like a tidal wave as he flipped open the compass. And he swore he saw the needle spin and spin and spin, and he closed the lid, opened it, and it was still and unwavering. He blinked and it spun wildly and he-- 

"Techno?" 

The voices shut off as abruptly as a flicked light switch, the compass back to pointing steadily, all of the noise receding back into a dull hum as the bodies standing outside the cell magnified down into one single silhouette. It was Ranboo. The ender looked tired, like he hadn't slept. His suit scuffed and dirty, the white undershirt soot-stained, speckled with blood, a clotted cut ran from his temple down to his chin on the darker half of his face and bruises littered what exposed portions of skin he could see. 

"What the heck happened to you?" He asked, fingers clutched tight around the compass. 

"Uhm… Dream." 

"Were you in the cabin when he…?" 

"Yeah, I was in the basement, the part Tommy had made for himself, uhm-- Phil called me, told me to stay down there, said Dream had shown up asking for him. Tommy managed to get out though, we sort of dug a hole out through the back, sorry--"

"For once, I'll admit, I don't mind the destruction to my property." 

"Well, about that--" Ranboo chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing around nervously all the while. "Tommy got out, but I didn't exactly manage to do the same before Dream had laid TNT inside and uhm--" 

His brow furrowed. "He blew up my cabin?" 

"Yeah." 

He nearly crushed the compass in his fist. "Alright. What happened after he blew it up?" 

"It's hard to remember that. I kind of-- I woke up under what was left of your house."

"Was Carl okay?" 

Ranboo nodded. "He managed to get out of the stables fine." 

"Good." 

"And I, uhm-- I went back to L'Manberg." 

"You didn't stop to eat on the way or bandage up? Full offense, kid, but you look, uh…rough." 

"Yeah, uhm-- Yeah, I actually went to my house to grab something, but I realized I couldn't find my journals in the right place. Someone moved them… I think. I don't think it was me. It couldn't have been me. I mean-- It probably wasn't me. And--" Ranboo pulled out said journal, flipped to towards the end, bent the book back enough until the spine creaked and the slivered remains of a torn page showed. "Someone tore pages out." 

"Huh." 

"I can't-- I can't remember what exactly was on them, I just had a note to visit you again, and I--" 

He didn't have to see the rest of the journal to know the page detailing Tommy's whereabouts had been taken. And while it slashed off a measure of the guilt, it didn't stop him from realizing Dream had made him say where Tommy was hiding when the man already knew the whole time. Like this was just some game to him. Like it was fun to watch him flounder and trip and stumble... 

"Hey, man, it's fine. Not your fault. Someone's messing with your head." 

"You don't think it's--" Ranboo glanced to the side. "I mean do you think it's--" 

"Probably." 

Ranboo breathed out a harsh sigh, a quick short breath that he sucked back in through his teeth and he could see the kid's shoulders ratchet up, his hands tighten around where they clutched the journal like a lifeline. 

"Uh… who's even left by the way?" He asked, hoping to reign Ranboo in before he full-on panicked in front of his cell. 

Ranboo blinked, shook his head, and seemed to focus back in on him. "Outside?" 

"Yeah."

"Uhm-- Tubbo, Tommy… Jack is somewhere. Eret and a few of the other's are still around. Some of the Badlands. But other than that, anyone who isn't loyal to Dream is pretty much--" Ranboo gestured to the prison around them.

"Yeah, uh… That's a bit of a problem." 

"Yeah." 

"Well, uh…" He sighed. "Brainstorming time. How do we fix this one?" 

Ranboo blinked. "You're-- You're asking me?" 

"Sure, why not." 

"Uh… I don't know. I mean, what's Dream's weakness?" Ranboo asked.

"Good question." 

"Does anyone even know that?" 

He shrugged. "He's a bit smug." 

"Smug?" 

"All shrugs and smirking behind that dumb mask. You can hear it in the way he talks. Guy's a bit, uh… prideful." 

"So… We could try to appeal to his pride maybe?" 

"Something like that." 

Ranboo tilted his head. "How exactly do we do that though?" 

"What does he think he's really good at?" He asked, even if he already knew, the back and forth more a way to pick at his own brain then to actually wrest anything from Ranboo.

"Uhm… I'm-- I'm not sure." 

"Well, he likes to think he's some kinda PvP champ that's for sure. But, uh, I've already beat him at that game once." 

"Could you do it again?" Ranboo asked, suddenly eager and stepped close to the bars. 

"Heh?" 

"Could you beat him again?" 

"Yeah, probably, why?" 

"That's it then." 

"What's it?" 

Ranboo huffed. "That's the wager." 

"Uh… You want me to challenge him to a duel?" 

"Yes." 

"You think he'll, uh, accept that challenge?" 

"He lost to you before, right?" Ranboo asked. "You said we need to play off his pride. Maybe that's a sore spot for him. Maybe it still bothers him that he lost at all." 

"I do live in that man's head rent free." 

Ranboo nodded. "Then it's worth a shot." 

"Alright." 

"Okay." 

They both blinked at each other, awkwardly hovering at the bars and him unsure whether he should walk away first. 

"Uh… you should probably get going. You got a free pass in here for now, but I don't know how long that'll last." 

"Right, yeah, of course." 

"Be careful out there, man." 

Ranboo nodded. "Same to, uhm, you in there." 

The ender scampered away, faster than he expected the kid to move, and he only hoped one more person didn't end up behind bars because of him. 

He opened the compass, watched the needle, sighed when it stayed steady, and closed it again. Now, he had to figure out the best way to extend the challenge to Dream in the midst of all of this. 

He couldn't help but contemplate the wagers of mortals and gods and the failings of hubris woven throughout those myths. Gods dueled the mortals all the time; to prove their might, to undermine them, to show their strength. Dream was prideful, in a chaotic way. A wager of an unarmed fist fight might amuse him. Might even be funny to him. Funny enough he would accept it...

The next time Punz made his rounds, he asked for Dream, told him he had something to say to him personally, and the man didn't question it. 

It wasn't until hours later, when the flimsy line between the current day and the next blurred enough he was unsure what day it was anymore, that Dream showed up. He stood from where he had sat at the edge of the bars, compass clutched in his hands and eyes glued to where it never changed. 

Dream lingered outside the cell, arms crossed. "Punz said you had something to tell me." 

"I want a rematch." 

Dream paused, moved his hands to his pockets and tilted his head. "You want to… have another duel?" 

"Did I stutter?" 

"Sorry, I'm just-- Uh, why?" 

"You afraid you'll lose again or something?" 

" _No._ " Dream bit out, voice steely. "Just curious." 

"Would you consider yourself a, uh, betting man?" 

Dream shrugged. "I... dabble in wagers from time to time, sure." 

"I've got a proposition for you then." 

Dream stayed silent. 

"If I win against you in an unarmed, no funny business, good ol' fashioned, fisticuffs, last man standing wins type of fight, you let everyone out of this stupid box."

"And if you lose?" 

Technoblade shrugged. "We stay." 

"Mm, doesn't seem like I'm getting much out of this if I win." "How about…" He trailed off. "If I win," Dream hummed. "I get to kill Phil in front of you." 

"I--" Technoblade narrowed his eyes. "Bit extreme, but alright."

"Natural abilities only, no weapons, no armor, no tricks."

"I'm not the one you gotta worry about being tricky."

Dream chuckled, traced an 'x' over his chest and held up a hand. "Swear on my life, it'll just be a good, clean, brawl." 

"' _Good, clean'_." Technoblade finger-quoted. "Strong descriptors for what's gonna be me cracking your stupid mask like an egg."

"You can certainly try."

He seemed way too smug about all of this. Flipping over the terms in his head, he tried to pick out a loophole, figure out if he'd left anything unspoken, but it was a clear wager. An unarmed, unpotioned, primitive brawl. Just two dudes, the clothes on their back, and whatever they could do to one another with just their fists and teeth. Which admittedly, put like that, sounded… _odd_. Not to mention the fact Dream had laid Phil's life down as the wager seemed a bit much, but he supposed he wanted to bust like twenty people out of jail, including himself. 

He wouldn't let Phil die here though. He'd win this stupid fight. Without weapons and TNT and armor, Dream was just a guy after all. 

Technoblade cleared his throat. "So… is it-- Is that an acceptable wager to you then? If I agree to your, uh… _terms_." 

Dream tilted his head and slotted a hand through the bars. "Deal?" 

Technoblade took his hand and ignored the way it felt endlessly cold under his. "Deal." 

"I'll have Punz collect you when we've settled on a location. Did you want spectators?" 

"Eh, witnesses would be useful to make sure you don't cheat." 

The mask inclined towards him. "I don't cheat." 

"Yeah, and they'll let me know if for some reason you do." 

Dream was quiet a moment and then-- "Fine." 

"See you on the battlefield." Technoblade shot him a lazy salute. 

Dream stepped back, hands tucked into his pockets, and, as always, the next time Technoblade blinked, he was gone. He let his shoulders fall the moment Dream left, forehead resting against the bars. If he lost-- No, he wouldn't lose. He couldn't lose. 

But somehow, he couldn't help but wonder, if this is how all the mortals trapped within the pages of books felt when they shook hands with a god knowing they either emerged victorious or lost _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good ol colosseum duel time let's goooo  
> Was this fic originally an excuse to write out a pvp battle between dream and techno? Yeah it sure was.


End file.
